He gnawed his cheek. “Dawn.”
“Reeve Dawn,” she repeated, and it was too nice sounding on her tongue. “And you’re a knight of the god of dawn? Well, that’s coincidental.” Her lips flickered up into an uneasy smile, and he wasn’t sure if she were being sarcastic or not—he often had a hard time with that. It took a specific variety of unkindness to poke fun at someone for being orphaned though, and she didn’t seem like the type. “This is Plum,” she said, shrugging a shoulder as the wyvern croaked, “and I’m Celeste Delacroix.”
His thoughts of her being cruel and needling him fell away with the lilt of her own name. It was such a gentle name that it seemed its owner couldn’t be anything but. He watched her long fingers trail the lace of her dress, a flash of the noxscura she’d used surrounding them in his mind, but then she pet the wyvern with those same fingers using a tenderness he was sure evil didn’t have. “Your name—are you from Clarriseau?”
She nodded, her smile growing, and it really was nice. “Have you been?”
Reeve shook his head. “I have a brother, Gable, from the island.”
“I didn’t spend much of my life there, but it’s where I was born,” she admitted quickly. “Where are you from?”
Reeve opened his mouth to tell her of Bendcrest and the temple there, but the clearing of a non-existent throat made him clamp his lips back shut.
“Your sword can speak,” she said carefully, eyeing Sid. There was no shrewdness in her gaze, just a curiosity that made her lean nearer the barrier.
Unsure if he should confirm or not, he just watched her as she assessed the weapon. Her face had fallen back into its natural frown, and a little guilt swam in his stomach for allowing that. But then, she’d tried to kill him, and she was still keeping him, and neither of those things were acceptable no matter how well wrapped up they were in nice packaging.
“The tea is getting cold,” she said, voice lower.
The steam had gone, and the honey on the cakes was solidifying as well. Reeve grunted, his eyes passing over everything she had pushed through to him. It would have been simpler to just let him out instead. Simpler but deadly.
He reached forward, watching her from the corner of his eye, and her back straightened, fingers going tight on her dress’s hem. When he picked up one of the books, her shoulders sagged.
The tome felt strangely loose in his hands, and he thought, surely, all of his suspicions were confirmed: she had tampered with everything, and it was a trap. Reeve let the book dangle at arm’s length, pages flipping open, and like a dagger had once pierced the spine to ruin it, half of the pages littered the floor.
Well, if it was a trap, it was a bad one.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t pay too much attention to which books I grabbed,” she said, taking a generous breath and then going on with speed, “I’m not supposed to leave the room when I have things baking in the oven because I’m not very good with the arcana in it. I burnt half a kitchen down once, and we had to leave the manor Delphine had taken over because it drew too much attention. She work so hard to get rid of the man who lived there too, and she was so angry that—well, nevermind. Do you want a different book?”
Reeve only eyed her harder. “No,” he said flatly, not wanting to give her another chance to harm him. “Why would you even offer?”
“So you won’t be bored? I thought it might be…nice?”
He dropped the book into a pile atop its pages and leaned forward. “Whyare you beingniceto me?”
She bent away from the barrier, eyes wider. “Well, because…because Iamnice?”
Reeve scoffed. “Nice people do not have to say they are nice.”
The witch called Celeste remained very still for a time, and Reeve watched her, watched her hands for more dark magic, watched her face for a break in its deceit, but she only drew her lips into a pout. “Apparently, they do have to say it toyou.”
She got to her feet then, the wyvern taking off, and she swept out of the room in a blur of blue and black behind the flying creature. The sound of her slippers quickly fell away down the hall beyond where he could see.
Reeve held his breath, listening, and then sighed, pressing a hand to his chest. Why did that feel sobad?
Then the footsteps came back, and her head poked through the doorway, hair in her face. “I’m sorry for shouting, that didn’t prove my point, butstill.” And just as quickly, she disappeared again.
“You didn’t shout,” said Reeve, but she was already gone.
He stared into the silent hall for a long while, but then his growling stomach brought him out of his thoughtless gawk. Sid said something as he reached for the plate and saucer, but he ignored the sword. Sid wasn’t always right, and Reeve wasn’t always wrong, and it was worth risking this time.
The cake was fluffy and delicious, just as he knew it would be. It tasted like nothing he’d ever had before and yet like being young and running around the sisters’ feet and begging for a crumb of whatever they were baking.
He waited for something dastardly to happen, his throat to swell, his bowels to churn, his vision to blur, but only his stomach responded with an urging for him to eat more. If that were the curse she’d put on the cakes, then that was fine with him.
Witches, he had to assume, did much more dastardly things than make cake.
CHAPTER 7
