“Aunt Rosa?” Nelle gently urged as she fiddled with the long fringe of her shawl.
Rosa was married to Harding Lyon. The Lyons were hunters we sometimes worked with. A few years after Mom had beenstolen, Aunt Rosa had barged her way into our lives to help Dad with raising us. He was struggling to be everything to everyone while still trying to hunt down the whereabouts of our abducted mother.
Aunt Rosa refused to budge, despite my father’s brusque insistence that he had everything under control.“Like hells you do, VV,”she replied. Aunt Rosa relieved the pressure of my mother’s absence, and she reminded us we were children and we should, along with our dad, be allowed to have fun too. Be it that Aunt Rosa’s kind of fun was often fucking crazy.
I set about chopping up one half of the dead chicken into smaller pieces. “Aunt Rosa isn’t an aunt by blood. She’s my dad’s best friend, so we’ve always called her that. He doesn’t like many people, but he likes her. They go back a long way.”
And she’s currently helping him hunt a beast we need for the Blacksmith.
Nelle unwound her shawl and tossed it haphazardly on the kitchen counter. Irritation scratched at my insides. My fingers itched to pick up the shawl, fold it, and put it away, where it lived—inside a godsdamned drawer—when I noticed the sly smirk twitching on her lips as if she’d purposely done it to taunt me.
My gaze sharpened on her. I didn’t have a problem, like she thought. I simply liked my domain tidy, like anyone else would do too.
While I tried to ignore the scarf fucking sitting there in a heaped mess, Nelle stretched up on her toes to reach the shelf holding the drinking vessels. Her fingers wrapped around a tall glass as she pursed her lips, contemplating. “I remember her from the House Gatherings. She’s really chatty.”
“Yeah.” Sometimes it was hard to get a word in edge-wise.
“She likes party planning, huh?”
A huff of laughter escaped my throat. “Shelovesparty planning too much.” A heartbeat afterward, my brows nudged together in bewilderment. “Jett told you that?”
She nodded and turned her attention to filling her glass with water. Turning off the tap, she leaned against the counter to watch me while I rapidly diced the chicken. It was a moment later when I realized Nelle was staring at me with a weird look. I stilled and cocked a curious brow at her.
She took a sip and then swallowed. Lowering the glass to her middle, her fingertips rapped against its sides before she said, “It was strange hearing about your family and Aunt Rosa as if…”
“We’re normal?”
“Normal-ish,” she amended flatly while thumbing Zrenyth’s rope.
I braced myself for the acrid guilt I carried with me to rise and drown me beneath its inky depths. It arrived, yet the buzzing under my skin diminished it. I had to suppress the impatient hum forcefully as I glanced fleetingly over the black messenger bag at her hip. I’d already noted how the strap dug into her shoulder because it contained something large and heavy.
Nelle wiped away a bead of water drizzling down the outside of her glass. “Youstolecircus performers?”
“The Cirque du Soleil, no less.” I puffed out a breath as my mind swept back to that horrific night. Aunt Rosa lit too many fireworks at once. Wild sparks incinerated the intricate harnesses and ribbons. Flames and screaming filled the sky. And it didn’t help matters when Aunt Rosa, ensnared in mindless panic, didn’t stop describing what was going on to Ferne, including the way the ribbon twirler fell right at her feet and snapped her neck.
“Ferne is…” Nelle began, then drifted off as if hesitant to say what was so fucking obvious. Everyone else said it. Why botherwith such an extravagant gift for a girl who was blind? Bristling, I furiously hacked the chicken into smaller portions.
Except my little bird briefly dropped her gaze to her feet and curled the tips of her dainty toes against the tile. “Is Ferne okay… after how it ended?”
Warmth coiled inside my chest that she should ask.
I nodded. It took a while, but eventually.
Nelle glanced up at me from beneath her feathered lashes and shared softly, “Besides, the ending of it all… Ferne’s birthday celebration sounds so enchanting… I’m glad she enjoyed it.”
Yes, Ferne had. And many more followed. Once she took charge, my sister moved through our world with a quiet certainty that it would be hers to shape.
Nelle finished her drink and placed the empty glass in the sink. I thought she’d leave for bed, but she remained, fidgeting in place. She smoothed her hands over the shawl on the counter. Her fingers plucked at the soft material, and she nibbled on the corner of her mouth as she neatly folded it. While I chopped up the other half of the foul chicken, I felt her swift glances on my profile. It seemed as if something else was on her mind, but she wasn’t sure how to voice it.
For a long moment, only the sound of Sage’s tail enthusiastically swishing along the tile and the slice of my adamere dagger against wood and bone and rank flesh filled the room.
“Why do you live in the tower?” she asked quietly.
A cold splash of surprise shocked my insides that she’d ask me. I was pretty sure she’d already deduced the answer with her clever mind.
“I think you know why.” My blade scraped against the wooden chopping block as I slid the foul chicken pieces into Sage’s food bowl. Washing the dagger and my hands in frothy soap, I dried up on a lime-checkered tea towel hanging on the oven doorhandle before tucking it away. Grabbing hold of the bowl, Sage pranced at my heels as I stepped onto the balcony and squatted down to place the bowl beside his water dish. With an excited yap, the wraith-wolf lunged in, greedily snatching up a rotten morsel. A ridgeline of hackled fur ran down his spine, and he flattened his ears back, loosening a deep growl, warning me off his food.
As fucking if—he was welcome to the putrid chicken.
