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I’d thought I wanted a little time alone after dinner, but the manor’s kitchen felt far too big and empty when I was the only one in it. When the door swung open and Lesley peeked inside, my spirits lifted.
“Need a little help with that?” she said.
I’d just started filling the sink with soapy water, the tang of lemon in my nose. The dirty dishes were stacked on the counter beside me. “You could dry, if you really want to,” I said. “I think there’s a dish towel around here somewhere… Over there, hanging from that cupboard handle.”
Lesley plucked it off and came to stand beside the dish rack. I set the first few bowls into the water, and she cocked her head, watching me through her rectangular glasses.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
It was a simple question, but somehow so unexpected that my throat closed up. “Oh,” I said. “Okay. I mean, as well as I can be with everything that’s going on.”
“I don’t mean to pry. It’s just hard not to notice… Gabriel went off somewhere. And you didn’t want him to go.”
For a second, I couldn’t talk at all. “Yeah,” I managed.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay,” she said, holding up her hands. “I thought maybe… I don’t know if I can give any advice, really. But I know what it’s like to lose a consort. So, if you need to let anything out with someone who’s got the general idea, I’m here.”
The offer was so kind that my eyes welled up despite my best attempts at self-control. “Thanks,” I said. “I don’t know if I can compare our situations. He’s still alive. He could come back. I have no idea what it’s like, what you’ve been through.”
She shrugged, but her gaze had gone distant. “It’s like a piece of yourself has been hollowed out, and nothing you can do will fill it. I don’t know if it ever gets completely better. But that hole does start to feel less hollow over time. The good memories fill it in. Finding other people you can count on.”
“I can’t say I don’t have those. But it’s good to hear that the painful part gets better.” I paused. “Do you still think about him a lot? Your consort?”
“Not as much as I used to right after he passed,” she said, tucking her mousy hair behind her ear. “But every day, definitely. On the harder days, every hour.” She shook her head. “That’s how I knew something was wrong, the way my parents were acting. It’s been less than a year. I’m not ready to form that kind of attachment with anyone else yet. I don’t know why they were so insistent… I couldn’t stand it anymore, the way they were trying to rush me.”
My pulse stuttered as I remembered my recent conversation with Imogen. “Have you had any contact with your parents? Are they hassling you at all about staying here?”
“I blocked them,” she said with uncharacteristic firmness. Her mouth set in something that was almost a smile. “It’s been a relief not having to deal with them going at me day in and day out.”
I had to smile back. “You can keep them at a distance as long as you want. And remember what I promised you—I’m going to make it safe for you to go back and reclaim your estate if I possibly can. I got this property from my dad because of the way he treated me. We can do the same for you.”
“I know,” she said quietly, but her smile grew a little. She picked up one of the bowls I’d gotten around to washing and rubbed the towel over it, considering it as she turned it in her hands. “You know, I was thinking… A lot of the trouble you’ve been having is focused on the guys, isn’t it? There are ways you could be more sure they could defend themselves if they needed to. The batons the male enforcers use—one of my grandmothers worked for the Assembly for a while magicking those. She’s talked about the process. I’m sure I could help you make something similar.”
An actual magical weapon the guys could use to defend themselves? It might not have helped against the attacks on their families, but at least I could feel a little more secure when they were off the estate. “That would be amazing,” I said.
The door murmured open, and I caught a glimpse of a matching set of tawny hair, curly here and short-cropped there.
“There she is!” Kyler said. He ambled over, kissed my cheek with a hand on my waist, and then hopped up to sit on the counter on the other side of the stack of dishes, his legs dangling in a boyish pose.
Seth followed behind his slimmer twin, looking more serious, as usual. “Thalia mentioned you sent the staff home early,” he said, stopping next to Ky with his arms folded over his broad chest.
Lesley glanced at them and then me, looking amused. “We’ll talk more tomorrow morning?” she suggested, setting down her towel.
“Definitely,” I said. She slipped out of the kitchen, leaving me to my consorts.
“Why are you hiding away in here?” Ky asked.
I shoved my hands deeper into the hot sudsy water to grab a plate. “I just wanted to do something definite,” I said. “Something I can feel with my hands. I don’t know. It’s kind of grounding, washing stuff.”
“You still don’t have a dishwasher in this place, huh?” He craned his neck as he scanned the length of the kitchen. It’d been built to accommodate the parties that I guessed had been thrown a lot more often in earlier times when the Hallowell family had been larger. For most of the time I’d lived here, it’d been just me and my father. The house might have seen more activity after he’d married my stepmother, but we’d moved to Portland not long after that.
Ky and Seth had been more familiar with this kitchen than most of the rest of the house. Their mom had worked in here when we’d employed a full kitchen staff, baking our bread and breakfast muffins and desserts.
“Oh, there is,” I said, nodding to the stainless steel appliance on the other side of the room, next to the massive double-doored fridge. “Butthatwouldn’t be hands-on, letting a machine do all the work.”
“Well, I’ve got good news about other things working,” Ky said with a grin. “The police took in two of the Frankfords’ allies this evening. I just saw the reports.”
My heart leapt. I set the plate in the rack and turned to him. “They were able to use the evidence you arranged for them to find. Do you think the charges will stick?”
