I huffed out a small disbelieving laugh. “You tracked me? Like alyvinin the woods?”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he answered. He dropped his gaze to my tea. “Were you not feeling well?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I answered, sighing. “And then I started feeling nauseous, so…”
“You should have woken a keeper,” he said. I shook my head, sighing. “Then find me instead if you’re not feeling well.”
“I wanted to come down here,” I answered, looking around the kitchen. “It’s rare to be here when no one else is. This place is the heart of your keep, you know.”
Kaldur reached for a slice of my bread, already laden with jam. He popped it into his mouth, and I swallowed when some dribbled onto his lip, when his tongue flashed out and he licked it away. My belly tightened. But I breathed in slowly. Even after everything that had happened, I would always think he was the most handsome male I’d ever seen…and I hated that.
“It is quiet,” he agreed. “It’s nice.”
I nodded. “Strangely, I kept thinking about this place when I was in Laras.”
“Why?”
“I just remember it being so full of life. I think Saira goes mad with it sometimes, the poor thing. But I’ve spent nearly as much time at this table than anywhere else in the keep. It feels strange to realize that…especially since during daylight hours now, I don’t feel so welcome here anymore.”
“You’re welcome to go anywhere you please,” Kaldur answered, frowning. “No one can tell you otherwise. I’ve made that clear to the keepers.”
My gaze flashed up to his. He’d told the keepers already?
“It’s different though. You wouldn’t understand. There’s an unspoken rule among keepers, and I am no longer one. This istheirplace, as it has always been. But it’s nice to sit in here and remember. I…I think I was quite lonely in Laras. Because I kept thinking about this kitchen.”
Kaldur was looking at me. I had his full attention, I realized. I’d felt the same way once, that night with him in the library. A nice night, one I remembered fondly.
Though I wondered what he’d thought about me then. Had healready been listening to Lydrasa? Had he already thought those terrible things about me?
And if he had, why had that night been so different?
Maybe…maybe he’d allowed himself to forget everything else,I thought, regarding him across the table. Maybe he’d been himself that night.
“What about Luc?” he wondered. I smoothed my finger over my teacup, over a dulled chip. “Weren’t you with him in Laras?”
I shook my head. Thinking about the afternoon with Luc in Kyndri’s Landing…it still stung. It still made my heart throb dully, remembering how different he’d been.
The Luc I’d known was gone.
But maybe…with Kaldur’s offer to replace what had been taken from him, maybe some of the old Luc could come back. Maybe not all, but some.
“I didn’t know how to find Luc,” I said. “I saw him out of a window one day, and it was by pure chance.”
“How long had it been since you saw him last?”
A small scoff of a laugh tumbled out of me. “Nearly ten years.”
Kaldur made a sound. “That long?”
“I hadn’t seen him since he left Wrezaan’s,” I said quietly, remembering that day at the transport depot. I’d been excited for Luc…but I’d also been inconsolable with despair. I’d tried to keep a brave face, but I knew it had hurt Luc to leave me behind, almost as much as it hurt me to go back to Wrezaan’s, knowing he wouldn’t be there.
“We wrote to each other a lot,” I said. “He gave me that perfume bottle when he left. He told me by the time it was empty, we would be in Laras together.”
Understanding flashed over Kaldur’s face.
“So, yeah, maybe I used too much,” I said quietly, shrugging a shoulder. “Because I wanted to see him again. It was stupid.”
“It wasn’t,” Kaldur said. “It’s never stupid to want to see someone again because you miss them. There are some people Iwish I could see again, and I’d have bathed in that perfume if it meant I could.”
