For a single wild moment, she actually considered ripping that flask from Olivia’s grasp and dumping what was left of it all over the floor. She knew her best friend needed its contents to manageher pain. But the other was swiftly becoming entirely too dependent on that cordial.
And it was dulling her edge.
“You should have told me,” she bit out, indignation, anger, and disbelief all fighting for supremacy within her heart. How could Olivia have thought it wise to keep something likethisfrom her?
As if knowing her thoughts, her friend murmured, “I didn’t want to heap one more problem on your plate—”
“That is not for you to decide,” Seraphina insisted, shoving herself away from the dining table with a screech of chair legs on the floor. “I have a right to know these things, Olivia, and as my Spymaster, it is your responsibility to tell me.” Before she could stop herself, her anger became pointed, leading her to wonder aloud, “Otherwise, what was the point in raising you from a mere kitchen maid in the first place?”
Her tongue wielded those words like a blade. Sharp. Ruthless.
Olivia flinched, as if she had just been struck in the face.
Duke Percival’s frown deepened.
Biting back all the other words she so longed to say but knewshe should not, Seraphina stepped away from the table and swept toward the fire crackling merrily in the hearth. There, Rogue lazed, sprawled out in all his snowy glory, with Alyx curled atop him. The two looked so content, so at peace.
She could not remember the last time she had felt similarly.
Olivia laughed, as was her way when she was full of dream petal and bitter root, as if everything was all so terribly funny. “Don’t go snapping at me now just because the little Crow hurt your feelings with all his shouting about queens and pawns.”
Seraphina whirled to face her friend, her still-smoldering fury igniting again. “This hasnothingto do with the Crow.” It had everything to do with him, of course. But she refused to hand Olivia that victory.
Olivia snorted, clearly unconvinced.
Duchess Edith cleared her throat. “Now, ladies, please. Let us not quarrel.”
“Quarrel?” Duke Percival repeated. Behind his spectacles, his eyes narrowed. “I’m likely to start quarreling if somebody doesn’t tell me about these blasted pamphlets sooner rather than later.”
Out of habit, Seraphina’s lips snapped into another false smile. Even here—facing the only family she had left—she couldn’t afford to let her anxiety show. Because this was what happened when she did.
People started handling her with kid gloves.
“They are these charming little depictions of the de la Croix stag being devoured by Arath’s dragon, Your Grace,” Seraphina explained, bitterness welling up inside her like a rising tide.
Her people wished her dead. Even her best friend was now keeping secrets.
And despite her best efforts to be just as blasé about the whole thing as Olivia was clearly determined to be, her voice still cracked a little when she added, “With the words, ‘So ends House de la Croix,’ written beneath. Prince Aldric was kind enough to show me one, you see, when he was suggesting I send Sir Easome to thefront so he could stay here, to ensure the people don’t put my head on a pike when they eventually turn on me.”
A profound silence descended over her sitting room—a silence broken only by the thump of Duke Percival’s goblet settling back atop the table.
His attention fixed on Olivia. “How long?”
Olivia took a sudden interest in the carvings etched along the edge of the table rather than the stern-faced duke across from her. With her gaze lowered, she confessed, “Three days—”
“Three days?” he hissed, disbelief radiating across his features. “And you were intending to tell us…when?”
Seraphina’s attention trailed away from the pair and toward her godmother. When their eyes met, Duchess Edith’s frown melted away as she rose to her feet.
Olivia shoved away her half-eaten plate. “When I had the culprit in irons. My people have already traced the pamphlets to a particular district. It’s only a matter of time before we find the press and the person who commissioned the original drawing.”
“Olivia,” Duke Percival sighed. Leaning toward her, he reached for her hand across the table. Their tense conversation continued, the words now too quiet for Seraphina to follow.
In the lull, her godmother crossed the room, making straight for her.
“I’m perfectly all right,” she insisted again, turning away from Duchess Edith’s searching gaze in favor of facing the crackling fire once more. She held out her hands toward the flames, letting the warmth lap against her skin.
But it did little for the cold tendrils of fear slowly ensnaring her heart. Aldric’s final words from that morning still echoed through her mind:“I would never sacrifice my queen for the sake of a few pawns.”
