She pursed her lips. “Hostile yet displaying hospitality when he wants. Is that why you let Arabella enter your House?”
Jake shrugged distractedly, pacing towards her as his eyes were fixed in the ripped clothes exposing her breasts. “I wanted to see if she had anything interesting to say.”
“And did she?”
When he got closer, his nostrils flared, and after a brief pause, he clenched his jaw and his hand approached her face. “No,” he growled. He lifted her chin upwards, the silver of his eyes glistening under the light of the flames as his eyes stopped staring at her exposed skin and finally met hers. “Are you jealous, Brachyan?”
Right now, she was many things more than just jealous. “Should I be, Ruler?”
“As long as you remember there is nothing between us, do and feel whatever you want. Why are you here, anyway?”
She swallowed, trying to keep her impassive expression as strong as she had managed until this point in the conversation. “First, the librarian of your House, that tall, lanky guy who seems scared to death of paper, told me I need special permission from this benevolent Ruler to access the Forgotten section.” She saw him narrowing his eyes, so she added, “I need to access those books for my research. Please.”
She was here to conduct two researches: one, by usingOf Eastern Petals and Twisted Pain, to find the hidden piece of the Cardinal Queen’s heart. The other, by learning every wordin dark magic books about death, dark rituals, goddesses, and broken curses, to make this man able to love again. He knew about the first research. He didn’t have a clue about the second one.
“Permission granted. Anything else?”
“Yes, actually. There are about a hundred sangins hovering above your House, but they are justlooking, nottouchinganything or anyone.”
“They are better guests than you, then.” The corner of his lips tilted slightly upwards for a heartbeat, before he stormed towards the spiky door. “The Queen sent her sangins to look for my sister, and they won’t find her here.”
21
Nina
If Nina had to be grateful for one thing since they left the Crystal Clear Safehouse and Ayla moured them to the North Petal, it would be that it was much easier to resist the temptation to sleep here. There was so much to see and take in, things she had taken for granted all her childhood, when she grew up and served in the North, and until now she hadn’t even realized she had missed them.
She had had little time to play, and definitely not the permission to beseenplaying outside of the very restricted servant areas. Raoul got in trouble multiple times because he was caught with Lenna, but she somehow managed to protecthim from major consequences. At least until the day he was discarded.
For years, Nina spent her days buried doing laundry for every panom with a title or a known surname, admiring the lives of others through the little circular window she always kept pristine.
Her hands were on clothes and soap, her fingers always wrinkled, soaked in water and repetition, but her mind was outside, always outside. She absorbed life through her eyes. She felt joy when the two lovers who had been shyly approaching for months, kissed for the first time. She felt sadness when the eldest servant was fired for not being good enough anymore. She felt anger when little kids were mean towards the weakest, sick one.
From her little window, Nina learned about love and hate, fairness and injustice, support and abandonment. She dreamed and fantasized so much when she was awake that when the night came, her mind was blank and peaceful, a calm resting background until she witnessed the lives of others resuming the following day.
Nina had never feared sleep, and now she was terrified of it—she was terrified ofher.
Nina always tried to resist thinking about her, but that was absolutely impossible, especially when her nightmares repeated over and over in her mind like a broken record full of black feathers and bones. What Nina had avoided was saying her name or even thinking it, hoping such a powerful being would forget this little, insignificant existence of hers.Shehad infiltrated her brother’s mind and eliminated his whiteness from his soul, until she killed his pure heart with blackness.
Some nights when she had failed and hadn’t resisted falling asleep, Nina’s hair had gained a handful of black streaks in the middle of her white, long waves. A permanent reminder of thisunwanted link she hadn’t signed up for, reason enough for her to avoid looking at herself in the mirror. But this life of hers had not that many things she had ever signed up for. Being here in the North Petal with Ayla, though, was very much one.
Nina had never gone up these dark marble stairs of the North House, because she never had a reason to. Other servants were the ones transporting the meticulously cleaned and folded garments she had taken care of. Only the panoms and the most important of the Northern Elite were welcome in this area. She was neither of those things, and she would never be, but Ayla hadn’t even entertained the option of Nina not going with her to see her parents.
“Your heartbeat is fast, Nina.” Ayla tilted her head towards her, her red waves swinging over her back with the move. The silver metal of her eyeballs was powerful and breathtaking. “Can I help in any way?”
“I don’t know exactly why, but I’m nervous. It might be because I’ve never been where the important people of this House live, because of who we’re going to meet, or simply because this feels…proper right now.”
“This?” Ayla asked, and when Nina didn’t reply straightaway, she added, “What do you mean?”
Nina lifted her eyebrows slightly, and she didn’t miss the way Ayla’s head tilted to the side, awaiting her response. Her heartbeat had to be even faster now, for sure. “What we are doing, yes.”
Ayla halted, swallowing. “And what are we doing, Nina?”
The blush on her pale cheeks was obvious and immediate, but luckily Ayla couldn’t see it. Nina cleared her throat with a small cough. “We are here trying to find something that belongs to someone because we want something to happen.”
Ayla chuckled, a side smile on her lips that made Nina’s heart jump with happiness a little. It was so unusual nowadays to seeher smiling anymore. “Of course we are doing the most cryptic thing ever explained. How could I forget?”
Nina smiled back while the sound of their footsteps changed now that they weren’t climbing stairs anymore. As far as she had seen, Ayla had an excellent memory and rarely forgot anything.
