Silas nodded.
March said, “Why would you go to see Master Talik?”
“I had a question,” I said.
He raised a brow, and the look in his eyes turned colder instantly. “A question?”
“Yes. He didn’t answer it. Didyougo to see Master Talik, Silas?” Because why else would he ask me?
“What else did he say, if he didn’t answer your question?” he asked me instead.
“Nothing. Did you or did you not go to see him?”
A tick of silence. March’s eyes moved from him to me lightning fast. “No,” Silas said.
“But Reggie did.” His eyes widened just a tiny bit, and he composed himself quickly but I saw it. I saw it clearly.
“Is that so.” Silas stepped back. “Gotta go now. I’m feeling a bit dizzy from all the sparring. Goodnight.”
With a quick nod, he turned on his heels and walked away.
March and I watched after him as he smiled and waved at the others, then left the kitchen. I knew that if I tried to follow him now he wasn’t going to actually tell me anything, so I didn’t bother.
“He’s hiding something,” March muttered, his eyes bright with suspicion.
“He is.”
“So areyou.”
I raised my brows. “I’m really not.”
To my surprise, March didn’t believe me—but thesurprise didn’t last. Not when I remembered what he’d had to give away.
He smiled a little, so bitterly I almost flinched, and stepped back. “Right. Goodnight, then.”
Just like that, he walked all around the isle without so much as another look my way.
Impossible.No way.My mouth opened and closed as I watched after him—are you serious, Heartling?He was just going to walk away from melike that?
And I wasn’t even hiding anything—he knew more than anybody else in the world about me. I’d told him things I never dared to even talk about withmyself.
Yet he walked all the way outside the kitchen with his chin up, leaving me to try to catch my train of thought all by myself.
“Hey, mind if I have that?”
I blinked and Mimi’s big green eyes filled my vision. I looked down to where she was pointing—the last of my chocolate mousse that that asshole had brought me, before he stormed off like a damn toddler.
Well, now I didn’t want his stupid chocolate, either.
“Take it.” I put the cup on Mimi’s hand and jumped off the isle. “Goodnight.”
Not sure who I said it to, but everybody else said it back, waved at me as I went, and I was rushing now. I was almost running, and I didn’t know why until I saw the back of March’s head walking up the stairs.
“Hey!”I called, my nerves getting the best of me, because this wasn’t fair. And I knew that somebody could see us out here, and nobody was supposed to know we’d left our rooms, but theydidknow. And I really couldn’t care less if Calren came running with his cane in his hands—I was pissed off.
March stopped. Turned.
“What in the Everstill wasthat?!” I said as I took two stairsat a time, pointing behind me. “What are you, in first grade? You’re just going to walk away?!”
