“I could be sleeping if people would stop knocking on my door.” I closed it harder than necessary. “This is your second visit tonight. What could you possibly want now?”
“Charming as ever,” Peeble observed. “This is definitely going to end well.”
Thessaly moved around my room with casual familiarity, settling on the window seat. “He turned me away, you know.”
“What?”
“Kaelren. I went to his room. Offered to help him… relax before tomorrow.” She smiled ruefully. “He literally closed the door in my face.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say to that. Part of me wanted to feel victorious, but mostly I just felt exhausted.
“Awkward,” Peeble whispered.
“He’s never turned me away before,” she continued. “Even after the Bloom rejected him. Even when he was at his lowest. But now…” She looked at me directly. “Now there’s you.”
“There’s nothing between us.” The words felt like a lie even as I said them.
“Really getting a workout tonight, that particular denial,” Peeble muttered.
“No? Then why did his marks nearly destroy the dining table when you mentioned your ex-fiancé? Why does he watch you like you might disappear if he blinks? Why did he just reject the comfort of someone familiar for the possibility of someone impossible?”
“Because he’s focused on the mission.”
Thessaly laughed, soft and knowing. “If that’s what you need to tell yourself. But tomorrow, when the Hunt comes, when everything goes to hell—and it will—remember that he chose you. That means something, even if neither of you is ready to admit what.”
She stood to leave, pausing at the door. “For what it’s worth, I hope youboth survive long enough to figure it out.”
Then she was gone, taking her shadows and suggestions with her.
“Well,” Peeble said into the silence. “That was almost sincere at the end there. Character growth.”
“Shut up, Peeble.”
“You know I’m right though. About all of it.”
I climbed into the impossible bed, pulling the covers up. Tomorrow the Wild Hunt would come. Tomorrow everything would change. But tonight, I could still feel the ghost of Kaelren’s hand hovering near my cheek, close enough to feel the heat but not close enough to touch.
“He almost did it,” I whispered into the darkness.
“I know,” Peeble replied, gentler now. “That’s what makes it worse.”
Outside, autumn held its eternal moment, and somewhere in this impossible Court, Kaelren was probably standing guard, probably overthinking, probably hating himself for pulling away when all he wanted was to reach out.
At least some things stayed consistent.
13
Elle
Dawn came like a blade through silk—sudden, sharp, and irreversible.
I’d barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the ghost of Kaelren’s hand hovering near my face, heard his voice saying before I do something we’ll both regret. What did that mean? What would he regret?
“Stop overthinking,” Peeble muttered from my shoulder. “You’ll give yourself a headache.”
Too late for that.
The Autumn Court saw us off with all the ceremony of escorting condemned prisoners to execution. Merithra stood at the border, looking almost sorry—which, coming from her, was unsettling.
