Footsteps tapped through the room, and someone was whispering at the cracked-open door, the voices too soft to make any sense out of the syllables Lory grasped.
Holding her breath, she kept still, trying to remember if the brooch lay in the heap of blue fabric with what was left of Lory’s dress on the floor. In case she needed to defend herself from whoever was sneaking around the room, the brooch would be her only weapon.
“You have ten minutes to get her out of there,” Lu’Shen’s familiar voice remarked to a whispered questionLory couldn’t hear.
A moment later, the door closed, and the tapping footsteps approached the bed.
Lory was ready to roll out of the sheets over the edge of the bed to take cover when Anees’s sunshine voice greeted her. “Rise and shine.”
A flicker of fire appeared on the bedside table where a candle came to life, and Lory couldn’t help the pang of disappointment when she found only Anees standing there.
Lory had fallen asleep in Khayrivven’s arms, legs tangled with his, and for a long blissful while, the world outside the room in the cheap brothel at the edge of the poorest district of Dunai hadn’t existed. Waking up without him there drew a thick, dark blanket over the heat still simmering in her veins, and Lory wasn’t proud of the doubt creeping into her mind as she wondered if what had happened had been part of a test or a serendipitous encounter that might never occur again.
Anees looked her over: the sheets clutched in her fingers, pulled up to her chin, the soot stain on the silk.
“It’s none of my business what happened in here, but you need to get out before Ycken enters the building.” She folded her arms over her black-clad chest, tapping the toes of her boot on the floor as she waited for Lory to react. “Up, up, up.” Not a hint of a grin on her face, Anees jerked her chin at the dresser at the side of the room. “Are you going to find something to wear, or do I need to pick something?”
Anees’s tone suggested that letting her choose might result in Lory embarrassing herself even more than she had in the flimsy blue dress, so she wrapped the sheets around herbody and climbed out of bed. A pleasant soreness between her legs told her that what happened with Khayrivven hadn’t been a dream, and her heart made a joyous leap she would have preferred it didn’t.
After everything—the admission that he’d fought his own people to protect his sister from the king’s whims, the life-altering sex moments when their bodies had been fused and their universes united—he’d left her alone, sending in the prettiest and most skilled woman Ashthorn had to offer to remind her that a harsher reality was waiting for her.
Perhaps this was all still part of a test. Perhaps what he’d shared had been a lie, and he was joking about his conquest with Lenya and Ycken. But the pain in his eyes had been real, and so had the guilt when he’d told her about his sister. Whatever anger and hurt about him disappearing that flared in Lory’s chest needed to wait until she faced him again.
“Must have been quite a secret,” Anees commented as Lory padded to the plain, wooden dresser, pulling open the top drawer and rummaging for a shirt and pants in the assortment of silk, satin, and lace. Anees stalked closer, picking out a black satin tunic and holding it out for Lory. “Khay said you were successful in your mission.”
Lory’s hands paused mid-air, reaching for the tunic. “You’ve talked to him?” She forced herself to ignore the pang of disappointment at the thought that he’d left her to speak with Anees instead. Chewing her lower lip, she took the tunic and slipped it over her head before dropping the sheets. “When?”
When her head emerged through the fabric, Anees was eyeing her with an unreadable expression on her face. “Hereturned to Ashthorn an hour ago. Said you managed to draw a secret from a guy who usually doesn’t share secrets at all.”
The way she spoke didn’t let on whether she knew it had been him, and Lory couldn’t help the pang of hurt inside her chest as she remembered his words.The Triad can never know.
About them, about whatever that moment of honesty and intimacy had been, and the implications it would have for her future at Ashthorn. They could never know he told her about Elina. Lory’s heart ached for an entirely different reason at the thought of the life Khayrivven had submitted himself to in order to protect what was left of his family.
Part of her wondered how much the Triad knew about Elina, if this was Ulder’s little secret, or if they all used it like a leash on the fire-wielding dreamweaver, who might as well have been the most powerful creature trapped inside Ashthorn’s walls.
TheTriad.But Anees was Khayrivven’s friend. Who knew how much he’d shared with her? If he’d kept what happened between him and Lory a secret… it would only prove Anees was right. He was a man who usually didn’t share his secrets with anyone, and Lory had drawn the perhaps most damning one of all from him: He wasn’t only Flame-born, but he was Criu. And then there was the matter of Elina.
Bobbing her head, Lory turned back to the dresser and pulled open the second drawer. Thankfully, the tunic covered enough of her to hide the places where Khayrivven’s mouth had wrung pleasure from her, but there was nodecent pair of pants to be found. Lory picked a long, slitted skirt that would give her enough freedom to climb. When she was done, Anees extracted a pair of slippers from the third drawer and dropped them in front of her, pinning Lory with a look.
“Whatever happened in this room might be none of my business,” the phantom said, her tone serious enough to make Lory worry she’d be put on trial all over again. “But if it has anything to do with the mood Khayrivven is in, you’d better watch yourself.”
Foot-half in one shoe, Lory halted. “What do you mean?”
Something told Lory this was about more than what had happened between Khayrivven and her, but Anees’s expression didn’t give anything away.
“The Triad called him in the moment he returned, and when he got out of Brunn’s office, he seemed ready to set fire to Ashthorn.”
This definitely had nothing to do with her. “Did he sayanything?”
“About you?” She prowled to the window, pulling back the curtain hiding the view on the back alley Lory had once used as an escape route. “Only to get you as quickly as possible.” Opening the window, she swung her leg over the windowsill, then paused. “And to tell you not to share whatever secret you extracted with anyone.”
The fact he thought she might even consider blabbing about what she’d learned hurt more than that he’d sent someone to collect her.
The aftertaste of pleasure turned into something sour.
But Anees cracked a smile, gold-flecked eyes sparkling in the firelight. “He also told me that, if I don’t deliver you in one piece, he’ll happily cut my fingers off.
Lory’s breath got stuck in her throat, earning her a laugh from the phantom.
