I snorted before pressing a hand to my mouth to stifle my chuckle. The fool was learning to read like a child. How pathetic.
More interestingly, the other brother, the middle one who had some grudge against Cosmo I'd yet to figure out, was locked in low conversation with the murderer he’d married. His posture was rigid and color was rising in his cheeks as he pressed his lips flat and watched his wife. He looked anything but pleased as he listened to what she was saying. I couldn’t hear the words and couldn’t read her lips either as she was turned away from me, but her body language said enough. They were arguing. I was made even more certain of my estimation when, a moment later, she threw her arms into the air and stormed from the room. The younger brother watched her go with a look of regret while the elder and the acolyte both stopped their phonics lesson to give him a wary glance.
The eldest brother said something then that had the younger one shaking his head. I strained to hear what they were saying but couldn’t make out a word of it through the thick walls of the sturdy Second Ring house. With a sigh, I backed away just as the younger brother left the room. The eldest and the acolyte exchanged a look before returning to their work.
I considered my options. I’d never gain any valuable insight into this family by watching them through their window. If I couldn’t hear what they were saying, if they never went anywhere other than the ridiculous Third Ring jobs they still clung to for some reason, I would never learn a thing about them, which meant I would never understand her. And that just wouldn’t do.
Tapping a toe on the lush grass, I thought about ways I might gain an ear into the Bexley household in addition to an eye. Still thinking, I turned, then froze.
She was staring at me over the top of the fence that stood between the Bexley household and her own. A faded, graying old thing that spoke volumes about how long it had been since Adrian’s family’s new home was last inhabited. She had widehazel eyes and a mop of strawberry blonde hair on her head which hung well past the freckles on her face to just below her shoulders.
I was caught, we both knew it, but I wasn’t the sort to ever admit I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be. So, instead of muttering some excuse and bolting, I met her stare with one of my own and let my lips spread into a challenging grin. With a soft gasp, she dropped below the fence line and I saw her running back into her own house a moment later. Snickering, I turned on my heel and sauntered back through the yard toward the street beyond.
I’d just pulled my boot through the bushes when a long suffering sigh filled the night. I grimaced before turning slowly to face him.
Milo was resplendent in his pale blue blazer, collared shirt, and white fitted pants, as always. Even his pristine leather shoes shimmered in the moonlight. His chestnut curls bounced around his ears as he shook his head and I could feel the disappointment radiating off of him even though I couldn’t see his face.
“Honestly, Olympia,” he tsked.
Irritation welled up within me so suddenly, I clenched my fists at my sides to keep from swinging one at him.
“Nice to see dear grandmother lets one of us out of our cage now and then,” I sneered.
Stepping toward him on the street, I performed my signature move, crossing my arms and glaring at him from beneath my bangs.
“You know you aren’t in a cage, Olympia,” Milo replied in that indifferent monotone which always got under my skin much more effectively than any sort of emotional outburst. “If you would only follow grandmother’s rules for a little while, you’d earn her trust back again, easily. But you insist on taking theselittle jaunts down here late at night, and for what? What is it you hope to gain from them? You can’t bring him back. No matter how hard you try or how badly you want to. Harassing this poor family won’t—”
“You don’t know shit about me, cousin. You never have.”
Milo raised a brow but remained silent for a time. I did as well, though more out of spite than for lack of anything to say.
“You have a massive estate to roam about freely,” he said after a moment. “You have access to a library full of books, a kitchen full of food, sparring grounds and exercise arenas. You have luxury most only dream of and yet you call it a cage. You speak of your home as if it’s a prison. You may think I don’t understand you, and maybe I don’t, not entirely, but I know one thing for certain. You have not known suffering, true suffering, a day in your life. You’ve never starved or worked or rationed your water. And you’ve never had to because of grandmother. So act like a spoiled toddler all you want but do it from the confines of our home where she ordered you to remain.”
I fought to keep my reaction at bay. I couldn’t lie, Milo’s honesty was a surprise. Not that Milo wasn’t usually honest. In fact, my cousin was often brutally so. But he’d been tiptoeing around me for so long now, just like all the others, in recognition of what I’d lost. He’d allowed me my grief, given me time, and provided me with the space I needed to heal. Now, he was apparently done with the coddling.
“You have no idea,” I ground out, my voice a dangerous whisper, riding the knife’s edge of fury. “You’ve never cared about anyone enough to feel the pain of losing them. You hold yourself in such high esteem, keeping all this distance between yourself and the rest of us. You only let Adrian get close because you knew she couldn’t challenge you as a Third Ringer. She was too weak.”
“Apparently not.”
My words had been harsh, meant to hurt, but Milo had responded with bland apathy. No matter how awful the things I said to him were, no matter how much time I spent sharpening my words into blades meant to pierce and maim, he maintained his composure. My cousin was like a steel wall, impenetrable and unaffected by the weaponry hurled against him. Or perhaps he simply knew I didn’t mean it.
“Come home,” he said. His tone made it clear it was not a request. “Grandmother wishes to speak with you.”
I’d known this was coming. From the moment I left my room behind, slipped out through the window, and scurried down the slippery glass walls, I knew where my night would end. So I scoffed, strode past my cousin, and headed back up the stairs toward House Avus and my grandmother’s room within.
Milo walked me all the way to her door, trusting no one else with the task. He only left when I was standing inside, a few feet behind the matriarch of our House as she brushed her wiry white hair at the vanity table against a far wall. He shut the door behind him and I did my best not to feel locked away yet again.
“Where did you go?”
Nascha’s voice was always soft. When she spoke to her family, when she spoke to the priests or the Guardians, even when she spoke to the common people, it was always with a gentle tone. But there was a firmness to it as well and a matronly air that made you determined not to disappoint her. That was a task I’d failed more times than I could count.
“Does it matter?” I countered.
I blew my dark bangs from my face and relaxed my posture as I stood with hands on my hips. She swiveled in her vanity chair and raised a brow at my offensive stance.
“It mattered enough for you to disobey my direct orders,” she pointed out. “It mattered enough to climb out of a window andscale three stories down to the sparring grounds in the dead of night. So I’d say yes, it must matter, to you at least.”
She rose from her table, bright teal nightgown pooling on the floor at her feet. She cocked her head to the side and her hair fell over her shoulder.
