“Are you sure?” he asks. “What about your rabbit?”
Her stomach flips at the casual mention of her old stuffed rabbit. “Don’t touch Bugs.”
“You still sleep with him?”
The memory is a whip, quick and stinging. She’s fifteen years old again, spending the night at the Thorley house. Camellia and Poppy were fast asleep upstairs, but she’d tossed and turned for hours, sick with jealousy over the fact that Asher had gone out riding with Alameda Morales. It was after midnight, and he still hadn’t come home.
Restless, she’d tiptoed downstairs for a glass of water, her sleep shorts sticking to her skin. She’d stumbled upon Asher sneaking in through the open window, his neck dark with several hickeys. They’d frozen at the sight of each other, her with Bugs held before her like a shield and him with one foot in the wide farmhouse sink.How about you don’t tell my parents you saw me, he’d finally whispered,and I won’t tell anyone at school you still sleep with a stuffy?
“That’s none of your business,” she says now.
He grins. “So, then yes.”
“Your three minutes are up.” It comes out abruptly.
Compliant, he pries open the door, watching her too keenly as he does. She studies a spot on the wall and waits for him to leave. He doesn’t. He lingers.
“Are we still friends?”
Her chest gives an awful pinch. “Were we ever?”
“No,” he admits, though now he sounds careful. “That’s not the word I’d pick.”
Her eyes jolt to his, surprised. His stare is honey dark. Lit by a silver wedge of moonlight, he looks almost regretful.
“I’ll grab Bugs,” he says, and pulls the door shut before she can argue.
When he’s gone, she waits just long enough for him to be out of sight before heading out after him, her residual anger driving her at a full tilt. She finds Tristan standing outside as if he’d never left.
“Thanks for nothing,” she bites at him, and takes off down the hall.
He falls in after her, looking penitent. “Where are we going?”
“To talk to Lys.”
•••
She arrives outside Lys’s bedroom to find it shut. A hazy yellow light leaks out from the gap beneath. She shoves inside without bothering to knock, her nerves a hard knot in her belly.
“If the plan is to Turn me, then let’s get it over with—Oh.”
It isn’t Lys inside the room at all. It’s a woman, her raven-dark hair curtaining a face gone ropy with scarring. She’s seated by the unlit hearth, contemplating a chessboard. Reaching for a white pawn, she smiles up at Shea.
“Do you play?”
“No,” Shea admits, too surprised to say anything else.
The woman’s left eye glimmers curiously. The other is clouded white. A pale, opaline stare that seems to gaze clean through her. “It’s Oliver’s favorite. Although he’s going to lose this game. He went with the Sicilian Defense tonight. Aggressive, but he’s left himself full of holes. He must be in a bad mood.”
As if he’d been waiting for his cue, the door swings wide with just enough force to send it dinging off the drywall. Lys appears, looking treacherous. In the hall behind him, Tristan peers nervously over his shoulder.
“Leave,” Lys tells the woman.
She sets the pawn into a space, unhurried. “But it’s your move.”
“And I’ll let you know when I’ve made it. Get out.”
“There’s no need for histrionics,” she tells him, rising out of her chair. “I’m being perfectly well-behaved.”
