“I’d mind your words carefully,” Alan seethed, resting his cup on the mantel.
Interesting.
Adelaide cleared her throat and rolled her sleeves down. “You’re observant, but how I dress is no one’s concern but my own.”
Amaris was observant because she needed to be. One shift in the wind could send a fire crawling down the wrong hallway. One single symptom could be the deciding factor to give a medication. But now her life depended on it.
“My mistake,” Amaris said, attempting to recover. “I thought, as the daughter of the duke, you’d have a similar position as Theodoric.”
“You thought wrong,” Alan grunted.
“Alan,” Adelaide snapped.
Amaris’s attempt at friendship would be a whole lot easier withoutAlan interjecting his commentary.
“She is a lady of Luana. You’d be wise to speak with respect in the presence of nobility,” Alan snipped.
Jut into my convo with one more word, pretty boy. I dare you.Amaris released the tension in her shoulders and straightened her back. “What about you? You don’t seem to be much of anoble. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re just an errand boy.”
Alan’s blades were in his hands, and he was across the space. Amaris’s heart leapt. She didn’t have a chance to raise her arms in defense, but Adelaide flung her knife through the air, colliding with both of Alan’s with a simple clink. All the blades scattered across the room.
“Not a single drop of blood,” Adelaide sneered. She reclined back in her chair, like attacking someone with a knife was an everyday occurrence.
Amaris dug her nails into her palm, staving off the attempt her heart was making to jump from her chest.
§
After the nearassault with his daggers, Alan took Amaris to a room, where she’d been locked up since. He’d smiled as he bolted the door behind him. He was going to be a pain in her ass. The room was a step above the cell, with a bed, a decent pillow, and a dresser. Alan informed her a washroom was down the hall. Apparently, her bathroom privileges were on their time as well.
Amaris laid on the bed, her head still pounding, since she didn’t have access to ibuprofen or coffee. She’d already checked out the floor-length windows, and they opened, but she’d be scaling down a steep thirty or forty feet. As Amaris had leaned over the edge, her stomach had grown queasy. That was going to be her last line of escape.
A knock on the door pulled her from her planning, and Alan appeared in the doorway. “Supper time,” he snipped, crossing his arms. “I’ll beescorting you to the main hall.”
Amaris refrained from groaning since she was starving and followed him, but also because she would need him on her side until she could get her hand looked at. Over the course of the last hour, the pain had intensified, and her fingers poking through the linen were now swollen tight and bruised.
Amaris cleared her throat as they walked the halls. “Can I speak with Pricilla?”
“Tomorrow.”
“If I don’t take care of my hand soon, it could get infected.” It probably already had with how much it throbbed.
“You should have thought of that beforehand. Someone will fetch you in the morning to begin your duties.”
“It won’t always be you?” Her shoulders dropped. A small offering from the universe.
“I have more important duties to attend to than watching over you.”
“Yeah, because running messages around is so important,” Amaris muttered, skimming the ceiling with her eye roll.
He gripped her shoulder, pinning her against the wall. “Adelaide may have taken a liking to you, but I most certainly don’t care for your tongue. A mystique hardly needs one to perform their duties. I suggest you keep whatever comments you have to yourself, if you prefer to keep your tongue intact.”
If Adelaide saving her from Alan earlier wasn’t enough, he confirmed Amaris’s suspicions. Adelaide liked her.
“Fine,” she mumbled.
Alan pulled back, satisfied from his power trip, and remained silent the remainder of their walk to the main hall.
Dining roomwas too small to describe it, andcafeteriadidn’t do it justice. Two long tables sat on either side of the room, with a path leading up to a fifth one. The duke was seated beside a woman who Amaris presumed was the duchess. She had deep, fiery hair so similar to Viv’s thatit hurt. Several others, who must have been important figures, sat on either side of the couple.
