She stood, scratching Hero’s head. “Thank you.”
“Would you like me to rejoin her and continue listening?”
“Yes. Please.” She picked him up, kissed him between the ears, and then set him down again.
He raced up the terrace. Flor frowned down at him.
“I had better warn the staff not to send the cats after your rat,” she said.
Magda joined her on the terrace. “Better just tell them to put the cats out of the house.”
Flor’s plum-hued lips pursed as she nodded.
Her heart panged looking at Flor, who had been revived by Honey’s supposed communication with Caden.
If Honey wasn’t speaking to the dead, if she wasn’t speaking to Caden, then who was she speaking to? And how did they know so much about the lives of those deceased loved ones they mimicked? More importantly, why were they using Honey, what did they really want?
“Fix your face, dear,” Flor murmured. “You look unhappy.”
She recomposed her expression. “Sorry. I won’t let it happen again.”
Flor patted her on the cheek. “What did those humans do to you?”
KAELAN CIRCLED THE ROOM,running his fingers along the dark wood furniture, gazing at the bronze sconces and cut-crystal globes, drawing back the shimmery gray curtains to peer out over the balcony and the wall beyond.
His feet fell heavily on the wood floors, polished to a glass-like shine, as he prowled.
Magda dropped onto the silken bed clothes covering the grand four-poster bed, staring into the cold shadows of the fireplace.
“There’s only one bed,” he said. “Maybe you want to tie me to this chair while you sleep.”
He leaned his forearms upon the high-back chair, upholstered in dark purple. The whole room, though well-lit and huge, with high ceilings and pale violet-hued walls, felt too-close, confining.
“Are you ever going to drop it?” she asked, unfastening her greaves and then her boots, kicking them off.
He sank down into the chair. “Now what?”
“Now we get ready for the party,” she said. “Yourmotheris sending my letter of intent to the Crown. Hopefully, we’ll hear back soon.”
“Can we talk here?” he asked.
She shook her head firmly. Any number of magics could have been performed on the room to eavesdrop on them, but she said, “Of course.”
He slumped back in the chair. “I don’t see anywhere for you to train.”
“I could train in the field,” she said, raising her eyebrows in a way that she hoped he understood. The last thing they needed was the family to see how terribly out-of-practice she was.
He picked listlessly at his fine, fitted trousers. “I’m worried for you.”
She shot him a stern look as she loosened her vambraces. “What’s to worry about? The Crown will see I have the better claim and name me Radiant.”
“Or else you will meet Lavana and kill her, of course,” he said, his tone strong, but his eyes troubled.
“Of course,” she said, sliding off the bronze vambraces from her forearms, over her daggers. She met his gaze, attempting to impart to him that worrying wasn’t going to help.
He slid forward, elbows on his knees. “It’s only that... I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
While it would’ve been easy to slough off his remark as part of the play they were being forced to take part in, the expression on his face told her that his concern was genuine.
