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Nix shook his head and shared the dramatics of corralling all the Fareviews at the wedding. “Then I finally got the family to the hedge around the cottage. They are safe there, for now. Tarley wasn’t pleased. Neither was her husband.”
“Can you blame them?”
Nix didn’t answer, which Luc decided was because the answer was obvious. “You could bring them here.”
What the fuck, Luc?he chastised himself.
Nix laughed. “Good one. Lucian Uraiahs offering Sol as a refuge.”
“Right.”
Stop!
“We both know there’s enough room.”
Nix’s eyes narrowed. “You’re serious?”
“Until we can deal with the darkling.”
Nix looked at him, his dark gaze measuring him.
Luc turned away to avoid it.
“I will suggest it, but Scarlett–”
“We can send Tarley and her new husband through an Elsewhere Door for time alone.” Luc looked over his shoulder at Nix, who was grinning. Knowing he’d made Nix happy made Luc feel content, a somewhat foreign feeling he’d felt more tonight than he had in his lifetime. He didn’t dwell on it. “I know the perfect place for newlyweds.”
“Who are you and what have you done with my brother?”
5
Brinna struggled to make sense of the nonsense that had become her life.
She’d been standing in the center of Sevens looking for Mattias.
There’d been a horrible creature she’d mistaken as a man.
Lucian Uraiahs had intervened, saving her, and whisked her away to his home floating in the sky where there was something called Elsewhere Doors.
How was this not a dream?
And now she was in the bathing room where water flowed from the walls, standing in a smaller room within staring at beautiful garments she couldn’t have fathomed existing in Sevens. A set of trousers and a shirt. A knitted sweater so soft she was certain it had been crafted with threads of a cloud. A dress that sparkled, every available surface covered in gemstones. A shift of silk. Brinna blinked, sure she had yet to wake.
Then there was Lucian’s touch.
Her chest constricted then disintegrated, recalling the sensation of his fingers against her skin as he’d unfastened her gown. Even now chills raced through her, heating everything and making her feel breathless and achy, as if she’d only just awoke from a pleasurable dream. She swallowed, desirous of his touch once more, then shook her head of the thought. It was Lucian, for stars’ sake! Lucian might be offering his hospitality, and maybe she’d dreamt about him, but she did not want his touch. Dreams weren’t real life, and her traitorous body was a liar.
Having stripped out of everything she’d been wearing, she washed under the rainwater spigot, then slipped into the beautiful shift the color of a hot-summer-day sky. The fabric slid across her skin, whispering secrets as it did. Decadent and sensuous, she ran her hands along the fabric, sure she was still dreaming. Thinking about Lucian’s touch was added proof. The shift made her feel exposed; she was so used to multiple layers. Underclothes. A chemise. Corsets. Underskirts. The dress. A cloak. She pulled out a light gray sweater, a comforting texture in her hands, and shrugged into it. It was a hug, and she desperately needed one from her family, needed to know they were safe.
As she left the bathing room, she glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Oh. Her hair was a fright. She stopped and pulled all the pins releasing the length, then found a brush. Smoothing the strands till they flowed over her shoulders down to the middle of her back, she reached for a pin, but then hesitated with a sigh. Putting it up again felt overwhelming. Letting herself to be so undone was strange, but for the moment, it was all she could manage.
Settling herself with another deep breath, she left the bedroom and started back through the corridor. When she reached the glass hallway, she hesitated. The sky outside was a vibrant blue, deep and moody, as if still holding onto all the motion from the day, but the interior skyway glowed with ambient golden light still, filaments of artificial light—strange lamps—running along the sides of the walkway leading the way. On the other side of the glass corridor, she could see the greenery of the park Lucian had led her through. If she stared straight ahead and didn’t ponder that she was walking through the sky in a glass passageway, she could imagine it was just a hallway like any other.
She sucked in a breath and darted across the expanse as quickly as she could, bursting into the massive atrium, drawing in a new breath only once she was over. Lucian had cut through the massive green space at the atrium’s center—a woodland dotted with foliage and a stream that Brinna could imagine enjoying—but she didn’t think she would be able to find her way through by herself yet.
Yet?
She shook her head and skirted around it, noting the Elsewhere Doors. When she reached the next glass walkway, she hurried through to find she was in another corridor much like the one she’d come from. Had she gotten turned around?
