Augustus lifted a single brow and folded his arms. “Not whereyou’reconcerned.”
Selene needled Augustus with an elbow but asked Dimitrios, “What’s your plan?”
“I’m going to have a word with my grandfather.”
Chapter
Ten
Selene tore open her wardrobe, too aware of Augustus’s every move behind her as he sank onto the foot of their bed. The tension between them fit about as well as Cassia’s clothes—not at all. She wished they could return to the night before, when he was open to every word she had to say, no matter how hard it had been to hear.
That wasn’t the same man sitting behind her.Thisman had made her feel dismissed and imbecilic, and now he was trying to pretend he hadn’t said those things. He was trying to pretend that he hadn’ttoldher they were leaving, without discussing the severity of the situation they would be leaving behind.
On the bed, Augustus bent over his lap and buried his face in his hands. “I can’t believe he’s been here the entire time.”
This was exactly the problem. For him, the topic of Lazaros was important, but Perean and its ruling party meant nothing.
Lazaros’s appearance mattered. Of course, it mattered. To see Lazaros at Dimitrios’s side, in a place of trust, wearing a soldier’s uniform—it waswrong. Could—should—they trust Lazaros with Dimitrios after everything he’d done? During the worst time imaginable?
Selene rifled through the pretty silks and fine linens. Gauzy, semi-sheer muslins. Clothes for a woman who wanted to feel light and airy and feminine.
On the other side: leathers and quilted gambesons. Heavy wool. Everything a knife-wielding girl needed to test her skills on a certain back-stabbing pirate-turned-soldier.
She sighed.
She didn’twantto fight. She wanted peace, but peace was not a dress she could put on today.
“Are you all right?” Augustus asked from behind her.
“No.” She shut the wardrobe and flattened a hand to the surface.
“If this is about Lazaros?—”
She turned. “It’s about everything, Augustus. We were gone forone night, and the entire kingdom turned upside down.”
“And that’s our problem, how?”
“Dimitrios is our friend?—”
“He’syourfriend.”
Heat burst up her neck and filled her cheeks. Did that distinction really matter for this discussion? Why did it have to be that way at all? As if integrating his world with hers was some kind of death sentence. She’d let these retorts go for months, but her patience had run too thin.
“Fine,” she growled. “Myfriend, my stupid pet dragon, my people, my country,myhome.”
Augustus shot to his feet, and an expression came over him that she didn’t recognize. Muscles feathered up and down his jaw, and a fire caught in his eyes. “Funny, I thought your home was with me.” He aimed a rigid finger at the window. “I thought our life and future wereout there.”
“I seem to recall a time when you thought we had all the time in the world. Now, suddenly, we don’t? Which is it?”
He sank onto his back foot. “Is this the part where you ask me for five more months?” His tone gave the semblance of calm, while his expression remained unchanged. He was going to fight this battle to his dying breath. If only she understood why.
“When do you expect you’ll finally be ready to walk away?” he continued. “A year? Five?Ever?”
The hateful question took her aback, but not for long. “If you must know, yes, I’m wondering how I can walk away from all this. It’s like turning my back on a raging fire and holding the only bucket of water.”
“There are a thousand buckets of water in this city, Selene. You are not the answer to all of Dimitrios’s problems.”
“You feel no guilt at all, is that it?Youare responsible for Lazaros being here in the first place.” It wasn’t fair to blame him, but her reason had snapped like a bone-dry branch. “Wedragged Dimitrios into this life by the ear, and if it weren’t forus, he would still be home with his family.Safe.”
