Someone knocked at the front door.
I set down my spoon and smoothed my apron, then rushed past the dining room with its mahogany table.
The knock came again, sharper.
“Coming!” I called, quickening my pace.
I paused at the mirror in the hall—Taryn would have me whipped if I answered the door with my hair askew. I arranged my face into the blank pleasantness of a well-trained servant and reached for the handle.
Deep breath. Whoever this guest was, I’d curtsy, take their cloak, and play the perfect servant. I pulled open the heavy oak door, but the words died in my throat.
Prince Vaeris stood on the threshold, snow dusting his midnight cloak, flanked by two Runecloaks.
The breath left my body.
The torchlight from the street caught his sharp cheekbones, that sensual mouth I used to kiss, the untamed black hair that fell into startling blue eyes. Eyes that used to look at me like I mattered.
I clung to the doorframe. “Good evening, Your Highness.”
“Evening.”
His frostbitten gaze skimmed over me as if I were furniture. Not a person. Certainly not the girl he’d once embraced in shadowed alcoves.
My fingers tightened on the doorframe until my burned hand screamed. The pain kept me standing when my knees wanted to buckle.
Then he stepped past me, striding into the foyer. The Runecloaks swept in.
I held open the door, breathing in the cold he’d left behind.
He hadn’t come for me.
3
DINNER WITH WOLVES
Rheya nudged me as we left the kitchen. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” I wasn’t.
Vaeris’s blank stare had hit me hard. I’d rather he cursed at me. At least it’d mean he feltsomething, but the Vaeris who’d snuck me into inns and showered me with sweet kisses had looked straight through me. But then, he’d looked through me that night, too.
Money from selling the contents of the jewelry box would keep us alive when we escaped, and that’s what mattered—nothim. He’d made his choice months ago.
Just make it through dinner.
I kept my head low as we entered the dining room.
Candles floated in silver sconces, the light softening the table set with polished crystal and gleaming cutlery. Vaeris sat across from Taryn. His eyes grazed over me like I was a relic collecting dust in his memory.
“Lovely,” Henrik purred as I served him the stew. “You girls have outdone yourselves tonight.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
Vaeris studied his wine. “I passed through the human quarter today. Another building collapsed. Five dead.”
Henrik cut into his meat. “A tragedy, but inevitable when they’re so poorly maintained.”
“By their owners, you mean. The fae.”
