He was right about one thing.
I couldn’t sleep that night.
Twenty-One
The next morning, it felt like I’d just barely fallen asleep before light was streaming into my room. My mind hadn’t been willing to stop spinning the night before, but now waking up felt like a throbbing headache.
When I finally blinked my eyes open, Anayla was sitting across from me, bobbing one crossed leg over the other and turning the pages of her book.
“Ahh!” I sat up, startled.
She put a bookmark in carefully—that was clearly a higher priority than my well-being—and set the book down carefully on the table. “Good morning!”
“Why are you in my room?”
“I was sent to fetch you.”
“By who?”
She raised her brows. “One, you already know who, and two, you seem to hate hearing his name.”
“It’s not his name I hate,” I grumbled, sitting up.
She looked fresh and composed, as if she hadn’t just flown across half the kingdom the day before. I felt like I’d been hit by Fieran’s wings.
“Come on,” she said, tossing a bundle of clothes onto the edge ofthe bed. “Up and dressed. If you’re going to survive, you’d better get used to early mornings.”
I groaned as I sat up. Did I prefer early death or early mornings?
Anayla ducked into the hall as I washed up, then dressed. The shirt was soft linen, the pants comfortable but snug. Even the boots were high quality. I didn’t want to like any of it, but it was hard not to appreciate how well everything fit.
Still, none of it was as unabashedly sexy and badass at once as Anayla’s close-fitting leathers, with knives tucked along the corset top. I wasn’t sure how her exposed cleavage played well with a fight, but I didn’t remember seeing that much skin when she was fighting before.
“When do I get clothes like yours?” I asked.
“When you earn them. Probably sometime after you stop expecting to die.” She sounded slightly judgmental.
“Doyouexpect me to die?”
Anayla was apparently very busy walking ahead of me out of the room and couldn’t find words to answer.
In the common room, a long table had already been set, laden with food: platters of honeyed figs and roasted meats and cheeses, fresh bread still steaming hot, yellow butter topped with flakes of salt, and tea scented with vanilla and cinnamon. We didn’t eat this well in my house on the solstice.
I hesitated at the edge of the table. No one told me where to sit, but Anayla claimed the spot beside Asrael, and I found myself across from Fieran, of course.
His gaze caught me and he gave me a tilted, beautiful smile. “Good morning, killer.”
A last mortal servant bustled in, setting down another pot of tea. She looked up from nestling it between the plates, a smile fixed on her lips—and then looked up and met my eyes. Her smile fled instantly, her eyes widening.
Then she was gone, bustling out the door, but I was left with a churning feeling in my stomach. Fae and mortals alike seemed to know I didn’t belong at these tables. It was only Fieran who insisted I did.
“The jam is amazing,” Anayla told me, passing the basket of biscuitsand jam over. “And Dairen is going to be polite and pass you the ham platter instead of eating it all himself.”
Dairen looked up, offended, even though there was half a pig’s worth of ham on his plate. He handed the rest of the platter to me.
“She’s doing that weird mothering thing again,” Maura complained. “You gave her a new victim, Fear.”
“We love it,” Fieran assured Anayla, even though Maura’s face suggested she did not.
