“Only enough to find these garments I’m wearing. I haven’t had a chance to go through everything.” I wince. “I should have sorted the clothes and folded them, put them away… somewhere.”
“That’s not your job,” he says, sounding far away. “I have no such expectations.”
“Well… good.” My voice is small in the vast space, even though this little corner with the nest and the remnants of the fire feels cozy.
“No queen should be expected to deal with the menial things,” he goes on.
I laugh softly. “I’m not a queen.”
“Every woman is a queen to the man who loves her.”
He’s acting so weird. There is an air of sadness about him and I want to ask if he has lost someone, a woman he once loved perhaps, but I’m not sure I want to know.
Which ismeacting weird. I shouldn’t care if he’s sad or hurting. I won’t be staying here long. At least, I hope not.
And that brings me to my earlier resolution. “Roane, I need a weapon. A sword. A knife.”
He doesn’t glance my way. “Do you even know how to use them in a fight?”
“No. But you could teach me. Please?”
He doesn’t seem to hear me. He has gathered up the beautiful white dress from the pile of clothing. “You didn’t try this on.”
“Roane, are you listening to me? I need weapons. And I want to go back into the hall of books. The sanctum.”
He glances up at me, his gaze sharpening. “No.”
“You can’t keep forbidding me to do things. I can understand that being outside is dangerous, but you can accompany me into the sanctum. I only want to learn more about this place.”
That square jaw clenches. His hands fist in the silken fabric of the dress. “Dammit, Aline.”
“If you don’t take me there, I’ll go alone.”
“Fine. I’ll go with you if you wear this dress.” He lets out a long breath. “Deal?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
FRAGILE
ADELINE
What an odd proposal. He’s still kneeling there, the dress in his hands, in his fists, the fine fabric about to tear from the strain, but he doesn’t seem to notice. His long black hair is in its tangled braid, and his hands are dark with grime.
He shouldn’t look so handsome like that. I shouldn’t want him, and I don’t mean that because of the grime and oddness, but because he… he could break my heart.
It’s difficult for me to acknowledge how hard and fast I’m falling, that Olm was right. Hooked by Roane’s beauty, reeled in by his strength and protectiveness, foiled by his changing moods, I can’t get a breath in.
“Wearing a dress isn’t practical,” I whisper. “Wandering about?—”
“It will look beautiful on you.” He slowly gets up, the dress held close to his body. “I chose it for you.”
“You chose it? I thought Talton was the one who found the clothes for me.”
“I put them there,” he says, his voice just a breath. “He doesn’t know. I pulled them. From a book.”
It sounds like a confession. His voice is low, his cheekbones flushed. But the words replay inside my head and I take aninvoluntary step back at the enormity of that statement. “You can do that? Pull things from books?”
“I’m the library’s guardian.”
