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What had she done? There’d been no straight answer, though the looks on the other Presque Mort’s faces, that mingled fear and disgust, said it was her fault. But if the other man had gotten in the Mortem’s path, somehow, gotten tangled in the strands that tied her to the leak, she couldn’t have stopped it. That part wasn’t her fault, and she didn’t care if the Presque Mort thought otherwise.
But if Gabe thought it…
That felt like a spear through the gut.
Her mind kept spinning up that last image of Anton, looking at her with placid curiosity. Anton, who’d shaped Mortem in a way she’d never seen before her untrained fingers channeled it through her veins. Had he done something to it? To her?
She wanted to believe that, but it felt like an excuse. And she knew Gabe would think the same thing.
The burning in her chest wasn’t quite sadness, and it wasn’t quite anger, and it had more shame in it than she’d care to admit. But at least it gave her something to concentrate on as she hobbled toward her bedroom door, something other than the voice she’d heard as all that Mortem coursed through her hands, into her heart.
They’ll force you to be stronger, and then break you down.
Lore shook her head and pushed open the door.
Someone sat on the dusty couch, the fire before them teased to roaring. Not Gabe.
Bastian.
She stood silent and confused in the doorway as the Sun Prince looked over his shoulder, golden-brown eyes reflecting flames. He stood, stretched casually, the hem of his pristine white shirt riding up to reveal an abdomen still bruised from boxing. “Morning,” he said. “Or, evening, as it were. You slept through dinner, which I suppose isn’t a shock, since you slept through a whole week, too. I brought you something to eat.”
His voice sparked in her, like the connection she’d always felt in his presence had sunk deeper, insinuated itself into muscle and marrow. An image flashed across her mind, roses and sunlight in a mountaintop garden, but then it was gone.
A tray stood on the small table behind the couch, covered with a gleaming silver cloche, wafting a rich scent Lore didn’t immediately recognize. She pulled off the cloche, barely registering what the dish was before shoving a forkful in her mouth. A bird of some kind, roasted with vegetables.
“Peahen,” Bastian offered with a flip of his hand, settling on the arm of the couch to watch her eat. “I hate it, but it seems you don’t.”
“I’d eat anything right about now,” Lore said around a full mouth.
“See, had you not just gone through something rather traumatic, I’d be making an off-color joke about that. As it is, I will let it lie. Please admire my restraint.”
Something rather traumatic, indeed. Suddenly the roasted peahen tasted like ash. Lore chewed and swallowed what was still in her mouth, then set down the fork, crossing her arms, staring at a charred ring of onion instead of Bastian. “Did Gabe tell you what happened?”
“Of course Gabe didn’t tell me,” Bastian scoffed. “Malcolm did, and only because I was in the South Sanctuary when he carried you inside.” He paused. “Gabe wouldn’t let me come see you, but when I brought it to Anton, he insisted.”
The fact that he’d willingly gone to his uncle made her blink. “Why?”
“Why wouldn’t Gabe let me in, or why did I want to come in the first place?” But his face said he knew which question she was asking. Bastian crossed his arms, looked at a place on the carpet as he considered his answer. “Would you believe it’s because I care about you?”
It hung in the air, a firmly drawn line that Lore didn’t know how to cross. She stayed on the safe side of it. “I suppose that tracks. You’ve conscripted me into being your employee on threat of the Burnt Isles; it’s natural you’d want to protect your investment.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
She refused to do this right now, not when she was sore and trembling from a week spent in bed. “So you won’t send me to the Burnt Isles if I tell your father or your uncle you know their plans?”
Bastian was silent, and the silence was the answer. That felt right, too, felt familiar and expected. He cared. But not enough to loosen his hold.
Lore nodded as if he’d spoken.
“I don’t want you hurt,” Bastian murmured, sidestepping a true answer. “Believe what you want about me, but I don’t want you hurt. And not because you’re working for me. Just because it’s you.”
“We haven’t known each other long,” she said finally, barely a whisper.
The prince snorted. “No, we haven’t. But it sure feels like we have, Lore.”
She had no argument for that, but it wasn’t a conversation she wanted to wade through; it wasn’t one she knew how. A glass of watered wine stood beside the tray; Lore picked it up and took a sip before she tried speaking again, changing the subject. “Why were you in the South Sanctuary in the first place?”
He let the conversation bend in the direction she twisted it, as if he, too, was eager to leave questions of care and knowing. “Some of the people I like kissing live in the cloisters.”
