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“Bria, I’m surprised I didn’t see you at any of the Trials,” I say serenely.
She snorts, then crosses her arms. Slung over one shoulder is a duffel bag. “You know I have no patience for the bullshit of the Council.”
“Daphne,” Dion intercedes. “Would you please tell her to leave your house?”
“No, I’m here for Finn. You don’t get to tell me that I need to leave,” Bria snaps at Dion.
“Right, well, this isn’t a spat I’m getting in the middle of,” I say, stepping, well, into the middle of it. “Finn is asleep. You can come in for now. When Finn wakes up, ask him if you can stay.”
Dion turns on me, brown eyes flashing. “You shouldn’t get in the middle of something you know nothing about.”
“You can tell me,” I offer, expecting neither of them to agree.
“Yeah, why don’t you tell her, Dion? Tell her how you told lies about me to Finn and ruined what we had.”
“Only if you tell her about how you started to see—”
“Enough,” I snap. “I don’t actually want to hear your tit-for-tat story.” It’s a lie. I do want to get to the heart of their juicy little spat, but there is a strange tightness in my stomach. Or lower. Xavier emerges from the library and I address him. “Can you find Helene and see what she wanted to do about this?” I gesture in the direction of Bria before dropping my hand to my stomach.
Essos uncrosses his arms and places one hand on my back. “What’s wrong?” he asks, placing his other hand over mine. The fight with Bria is forgotten.
Xavier is a half-second behind Essos, but he waits for my answer.
“I don’t know. I feel off—not me, but my stomach.”
Xavier reaches a hand toward me but waits for me to okay it. “Are you in pain?”
“No, it just… feels weird.”
Xavier touches me, and I watch his face, waiting for him to give me something. There is a small tick up of his lips. “You’re okay. It’s just your baby moving.”
Laughter bubbles out of me, and it’s enough to relax everyone in the room. I stand up straighter, smoothing my hand along the curve of my stomach. “Right, of course, it is.”
“I’ll take care of this,” Xavier offers, gesturing again at Bria and Dion.
“I am not something to be taken care of. I am here to help with Finn,” Bria repeats.
“Go,” Xavier gestures, ushering us forward.
Essos clicks his tongue, and Spot follows us toward his office. “You too, Mother,” Essos calls, glaring at Octavia.
My husband is calm as he closes the door to his office behind us. He points at Spot and gestures toward a dog bed in the corner. “Sit,” Essos snarls. I’m surprised at his vitriol, until I realize he’s looking at his mother.
She perches on the edge of the couch. “I don’t appreciate being spoken to like one of your dogs.”
“Perhaps if you were honest and not sneaky, I wouldn’t have to do so. Can you tell me, Mother dearest,whymy baby brother was sitting in my dining room yesterday morning, where he accosted my wife?”
Octavia presses her lips together hard enough that they turn white. For a second, I think regret flickers over her face as she looks at me. “You weren’t going to bring my son back, so I took matters into my own hands.”
“You’re telling me that instead of protecting Daphnelike you promised, you stole the dagger to bring Galen back?” Essos booms.
I take a different approach. “Octavia, I was unconscious for three days. There was no delay for any reason other than we just needed to regroup.”
“All you seem to do is regroup. You take one action, then discuss it while Posey is out there growing more powerful by the day. I decided I wasn’t willing to wait while you hashed out what to do next. So, yes, I was, as you called it, ‘sneaky,’ because I didn’t trust you to do what you said you would.”
“If anyone is untrustworthy here, Mother, it’s you.”
We’re all silent a moment, waiting to see if someone will crack first with an apology.
