She glared at the plate holding my gorgeous, golden cakes. “Why in the world would you physically prepare food?”
“Because it’s fun. This is my special recipe.”
“I’m not interested.” With that, she stalked across the sitting area.
Her ladies scurried to the panel, swinging it wide for her to sweep through, into the hall.
My bedroom door jerked open, and Farris scrambled into the room, his claws digging into the floor as he bolted toward the hall, snapping and snarling. Erisandra’s ladies flung themselves backward, slamming into the wall. He hurtled into the corridor, skidding sideways as he took off after the queen mother.
I gave chase, worried more about my nyxin than her. I caught up with them halfway down the hall. Erisandra stood with her back against the wall, her hands over her head.
She held Farris’s ball.
That’s when it hit me.
Finally,Lorant might say in that snide tone that used to irk me. Now it made me smile. Quite ferally, actually.
Stalking over to her, I snatched the ball from her grasp. “While it’s sweet of you to offer to toss the ball for my dear pet, I’ll do it instead.”
“No, no.” She leaped toward me, but if nothing else, my training made me fast. Pulling a blade, I backed, slashing it through the air between us.
She cried out and stumbled into the wall.
My grin widened.
“Careful,” I said. “I’m a little touchy when it comes to my and Farris’s things.” With that, I thrust the blade back into its sheath and stomped back into my suite with him trotting by my side, wearing a cute little nyxin grin.
“Go,” I told Erisandra’s ladies who still cowered by the wall.
They raced out the door in a flurry of skirts and high-pitched cries, and I slammed the panel closed behind them.
“Well, well, well.” I stared at the ball lying on my outstretchedpalm while Farris sat in front of me, making no effort to urge me to throw it.
A ball?
Perchancenot.
Farris had been trying to expose something glamoured. A diary, to be exact.
I tightened my fingers around the ball and strode over to the table, where I lifted a horig cake from the plate and tossed it to my nyxin, who caught it and gobbled it up. I selected another for myself and popped the entire thing into my mouth, chewing with sly satisfaction.
“Farris, my fine fellow?” I said around the tasty treat. “I believe it’s time for me to figure out nullification spells.”
23
Merrick
For good reason, I rarely invited anyone to my suite. For averygood reason and at dusk, I told Talvon to come to my suite for a chat.
He’d told me earlier he had news about what my mother was up to, and I put him off, believing Lorant would want to be involved in this conversation. While I could speak with Talvon anywhere and Lorant could listen in, I didn’t dare risk my body shifting from me to him in a public location. I never knew who might be watching, and if they weren’t ensorcelled by the curse like every other Evergorne citizen, they’dsee.
If someone from one of the two rival courts, Halendor and Irridain, witnessed, there was no knowing how they’d handle the information.
“Sit,” I told Talvon when he arrived. The sun hovered a blade’swidth above the horizon, and from all the prior times, I knew once Lorant was present in our mind, we would have five minutes and three seconds until the change.
Talvon settled gingerly on the edge of one of the chairs. I leaned my back against the fireplace where I could see myself—and soon, Lorant—in the large mirror on the opposite wall.
Finally,Lorant murmured in my mind, his voice sleepy. I must sound this way to him at dawn.
