Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he looked at her from head to toe, with the softest shake of his head. “This was never a negotiation. Consider yourself permanently on call. I don’t know what’s happened to your commitment to this family. Do you want Beatriz to die? Do you want your mother to hang for your crimes? Figure out your priorities, Elysia. Next time, they won’t just look like you.” Disgust lined his face as he gestured for her to leave. He was back to his papers without another glance.
Elysia closed the door behind her. She had known going in that he would never give her the ball off, but even a few weeks would have sufficed. She just needed time to figure out her next move. Her head fell back, thudding against the door. Safe from his sight, her chest shook now, her body trying to make sense of what had just happened.What a nightmare.
She tore the handkerchief away from where it was drying to her face like glue. Her face burned as much with humiliation as it did with pain. Nothing about this afternoon had goneright. She’d walked in here so sure she could make a deal with him, and he’d been two steps ahead. Ready to smack her down where she belonged. She swallowed a tight lump in her throat. She wouldnotcry. Not where anyone could see. Syren Herrin’s face crashed through the walls of her mind, but Elysia expertly swatted it away. If there was a god of retribution after death, then he surely had her name. Because she was worse than filth and she’d never had any hope for anything like honor. Because Syren Herrin hadn’t been lying. If it wasn’t for her healing, Elysia’s feet would probably still be as useless as the day Jack Parker had carved them up. And how had she repaid the woman? By handing her over to the king and his executioners.
The old thought crept in that maybe she really would be better off dead. It was a thought that liked to linger in the back of her mind. That at least then she wouldn’t have to deal with the guilt or see another life snuffed out because of her insufferable curse. Elysia shook herself out of it. She didn’t have time to fall into that hole. Her life may have been a series of choices she wished she could erase, but it was hers, and she wasn’t going to give it up.
Fuck my father and fuck the king.
Chin held high, she dared anyone to say a word as she paraded through the castle with half her face scraped off. The rumor mill worked fast when someone like Syren Herrin was dragged through the castle screeching until her lungs gave out. Word of Syren losing her mind to the curse was already spreading like wildfire. She could hear them whispering as she walked by that poor, sweet Elysia Parker had been mauled, too. Elysia ignored the stares and comments, continuing on briskly. She knew better than anyone that there would be something new to blather about by tomorrow.
The air soon turned warm and lush with the smell of bread and meat roasting.This is going to go well.She let out a sigh.Lynd was not going to appreciate her bloodied face. If she could, she would avoid the woman until her face healed, but that wasn’t really an option today.
She stepped into the kitchen, the tense lines of her body already loosening. There was something about the smells, the warmth—it felt safe. A feeling she didn’t deserve but desperately needed after what had just happened. She watched Lynd cook with a tender feeling in her chest. She found Lynd’s cooking to be in the same vein of how she felt coaxing life from seeds destined to die in Kava’s feeble light. Both the most natural yet extraordinary of acts.
Lynd spotted her but stayed focused on her dish. She called her over without a second thought. “Taste this,” she demanded.
Elysia put her lips to the wooden spoon and sipped at the hearty broth.
Lynd snatched the spoon back before Elysia could say anything. She looked aghast. “Yourface. Did one of those street dogs attack you?” Her hand ghosted over Elysia’s face, not touching, but clearly wanting to. Apparently, the gossip mongers hadn’t made their way to the kitchens yet.
Elysia just smiled and shook her head. There really wasn’t a good explanation, so she didn’t bother. She just walked over to the cleanest spot she could find and pulled out two pieces of paper from her purse. She hastily wrote out her messages and stuffed the papers into their envelopes. Dropping a blob of wax onto a spoon, she watched it shine, turning liquid over the flames of the stove. Sealing her letter, she left the wax free of any crest.
“You come here just to write letters, then?” Lynd stirred her soup, throwing in dashes of herbs.
Normally, she would have barked at her and told her that her kitchen wasn’t an office. Clearly, the scratches were earning hersympathy points. Elysia smiled as much as her face would allow. “Ah, Lynd, I could have done that anywhere.”
Lynd continued stirring the broth, staring at it with dissatisfaction. “So, what is it you need, then?”
Her motives were hardly ever pure, but there would always be a part of her that simply wanted to hide in Lynd’s kitchens as long as she could. It was tempting—the desire to hide here all day. Lynd was not wrong, though. She had come for business more than pleasure.
Elysia tucked her messages for Beatriz and Rollie back into her purse and stepped closer to Lynd, putting a hand on her shoulder. She curved in toward Lynd conspiratorially.
“Oh, just a little favor.”
Chapter 17
It wasearly evening when Elysia left her flat with her mind a razor’s edge and her face cleaned up the best she could manage. Beatriz had been warned to tie up her business with Scarzan immediately. Elysia wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that was about at this point. She’d kept her word, though, and that was what mattered. Rollie was set to receive a message informing him to ready his people. The diversion they demanded would be upon them soon, and if all went to plan, her debt to the House would be paid as quickly as it had come upon her. Which was exactly why Elysia now darkened the doorway of the notorious House Gardenia.
Kava’s meager sun had not yet set. Without the dark of night, the House’s fading beauty seemed to warn you its sweets would turn to dust on your tongue and all treasures won inside its doors may disappear by morning. Elysia was not here for the decadence or the many sinful delights of the House, though.
She banged her fist on the House Gardenia door with a bold impatience, ready to be done with this entire mess. She was tired and run through. The mystery that her life had devolved into had lost its luster, and now she would fight to author its ending before some man in her life stole the pen.
She stood in the doorway with a dark cascade of hair and a twilight purple dress that floated out into the night. Soft pink dusted her cheeks and darkened lashes curled to the sky. She came to the Doorman this time as a flower who carried a blade. A sentiment someone like the Doorman ought to appreciate.
The door swung open and a young man with golden hair and trails of glitter spraying out from his eyes answered the door. “The House isn’t open. Come back at dusk.”
He made to slam the door shut, but Elysia shoved her foot in the way, smiling grimly. “Tell the Doorman that Elysia Parker has come with a proposition.” Her fingers tapped the dagger sheathed along her tapered waistline. Curved with an intricate bronzed handle, she’d made sure to steal her favorite deathly toy back from Gage.
The worker squinted at her, astutely surmising that it was highly unlikely the stubborn woman with the knife would politely remove herself, and he, after all, was not the muscle of this place. He let out a curse under his breath. “Just wait a minute, will you?”
He started yelling over his shoulder, and Elysia could hear his fellow people of the House telling him to piss off before falling back into peals of laughter. She sighed, looking up to the sky. She didn’t want to barge in and drag the Doorman out, but she would. Her mother would die if she could see this lack of manners on full display. The thought brought a reluctant smile to her face.
“Elysia Parker. Can’t say I’m not curious.”
The Doorman stood shamelessly in the doorway with a hand on her hip and a mauve dressing gown seducing her every curve. She turned on her heel. “Come. Get ready with me.”
Elysia looked at the golden-haired man withI told you sowritten across her satisfied face and promptly trailed after the Doorman’s dressing skirts. The House Gardenia was evenmore lively when its doors were closed than when guests tumbled through its halls. The men, women, and people of the House both scurried and lazed about all in different phases of preparation for their nightly performances.
