“Sit,” he ordered as he crossed to the window, pushing the curtain aside to look out at the city below.
Marlow dropped onto the nearest bed, the wobbly frame protesting loudly beneath her.
“Why are we here?” August asked. He perched on a wooden chair at the edge of the room. Marlow might not have been worried about contracting bedbugs or fleas, but he certainly was. “I thought we were going to Fallowmoor.”
“Calling in a favor from an old friend.” Felix let the curtain fall as he turned to August. “But first, we need sleep. I’m wrecked.”
“And food?” August asked hopefully. The ache in his empty stomach was noticeable even through the rest of the pain.
Felix frowned, ready with some rude remark, no doubt, but it fell away. He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Actually, I could eat.” He plopped flat on the second bed, and August shivered, itchy with phantom insects. “Marlow, would you mind going downstairs and grabbing us some dinner?”
“Get it yourself.”
He pushed up to his elbows and quirked a brow. “And when the aesling tries to escape through the veil, you’ll stop him?”
She hesitated, then rolled off the bed. “You’re a right pain, d’ya know that?”
Felix grinned. “And you’re the best. Thanks a million, Mar.”
She grumbled something under her breath, then a moment later, she was gone, and he was alone with Felix.
“You’re clearly confident you can stop me if I try to escape,” August said. “So, can you get rid of this stupid rope?”
“I could, yeah. But I won’t.”
“Just for the night,” August pressed. “I can’t sleep like this.”
Felix stared back in unimpressed silence, then lay flat and closed his eyes.
August kept trying. He needed his hands free. Needed to run. “You don’t think it will raise suspicions, dragging me around with my hands bound?”
Felix said nothing.
August shifted in the chair, glare fixed on his profile. Gods, he was insufferable.
Movement across the room pulled his attention, and he let out a relieved breath.
Lottie. She’d come back.
He feared that one day, she’d get so mad that it would sever the connection. She’d move on, and he’d never see her again, and the thought was too painful to bear.
As she leaned forward to peek through the gap in the curtain, a ribbon of golden light shone through her, catching on the dust motes and pooling on the floor behind her, unobstructed.
He looked away as a chill settled over him. He hated the little reminders of what she was. Reminders that she wasn’t actually there.
“What is with this place?” she asked. If she were still angry, she didn’t let it show.
“I don’t know, but it gives me the creeps,” August answered without thinking, then clamped his mouth shut.
Felix rolled onto his side and propped his head on one hand, studying August, clearly puzzled by the unprompted remark. But it didn’t take long for him to figure it out.
“It’s terribly rude to exclude people from your conversations.”
Lottie went on, still watching the city through the window. “Everyone here is just going about their day. It’s nothing like Bedwyck. How is that possible?”
August gave a subtle shrug. Was it possible that the elixir only affected Bedwyck? Perhaps he’d get back to Fallowmoor and find it exactly as he left it.
But the woman in the market square. Felix’s noble friends. The elixir was prevalent in Fallowmoor even before they left. So why was this place unaffected?
