“I’m sorry,” I said. “Can you start over? Has Jasmine planned her wedding?”
Serena launched into an explanation, and I listened as if it were the last time I’d hear news from my old neighborhood. For all I knew, it might be. She asked where I’d been and what had happened at the Blessing Ceremony. I gave her little information she didn’t already seem to possess, but still her eyes lit with mischief.
“I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m sure that broody guard of yours will return shortly. And I have to find my own special friend for the evening.”
I reached for her arm but stopped myself before my hand closed around it. “Are you sure that’s safe? Letting the Blessed take from you?”
She gave me a soft smile, and it transformed her face from one sharing social pleasantries to someone … unsure, maybe scared. “This city is overwhelming. The raids, the taking, the … loss.”
Serena had started dating someone seriously just before I left. The way her voice cracked on the word, I wondered what had happened to him. When I opened my mouth to ask, she shook her head.
“We’ve all lost in Kavios. And I know the taking isn’t good for me. I’m not an idiot. But in here”—she gestured to the tavern—“it’s my choice. And the feeling is still unlike anything else I’ve experienced. It lets me forget about my circumstance, about being a human in this city made for the Blessed, for just a little while.” She squeezed my hand that was still outstretched. I found I didn’t mind. “You be careful. Whispers in this place about the jeweler are still not kind.”
I nodded, and she slipped into the crowd, meandering toward the curtained alcoves. My thoughts raced as she found a partner who pulled her onto one of the daybeds.
“We look after her.” Ava’s voice drifted from behind the counter. “She gives only a little each visit. Enough to dull her pain.”
I turned on my stool to face the bartender. As much as a deep-seated part of me knew that Hart’s intentions toward me were clear, I couldn’t get past the fact that I had thought that last time as well. Their familiarity spoke of years of trust. I guessed Hart had admitted as much openly, but I just couldn’t shake that twisting feeling in my chest.
“Everything alright, Emberline?” Ava asked as she leaned across the bar to have a more private conversation with me.
I nodded, even though the words that slipped out told a slightly different story. “You and Hart have so much … trust between you.”
That, she seemed to understand. “We do. We’ve worked together for a long time.”
The root of his sadness made clear how long Hart’s life had been. There may not be anything between him and Ava now, but that didn’t mean there had never been.
“Have you and Hart ever…?” I couldn’t finish the sentence, and Ava’s brow furrowed as she tracked my words.
She threw her dishrag on the counter, shaking her head. “Never.”
The tightness in my chest at the thought of them sharing secrets, at the thought of him trusting her more than he trusted me, uncoiled slightly.
“He wanted me to get you when he was dying in the woods, before the Blessing Ceremony,” I offered as some version of an excuse for the question.
She wiped away my concern. “He just didn’t want you there. He didn’t want you to make the choice you did on his account.”
Her answers made so much sense, and I knew them to berational, but my mind was determined to suggest the worst possible answer first. “He kept things from me.”
She nodded. “He did, but you knew that when you started working with him. He kept his deal with Alaric a secret. Remember when you stormed in here, upset about catching him out? You can’t expect a man like that, who has kept secrets from everyone for hundreds of years, to change overnight.”
I knew that. Hart and I had only known each other for weeks. I couldn’t expect us both to cover every topic in that time.
“Whether your uncle wanted this or not, I think he prepared you for it.”
My attention snapped back to Ava. “What do you mean?”
“He taught you to question. Always. Not only because he left a million truths unsaid but because he wanted you to have the skills to figure things out for yourself.”
When I first met her, I’d wondered if she and my uncle had been more than smuggling partners. She’d been so worried for him. I wanted to comfort her now, commiserate about our shared loss, but I wasn’t sure how.
I took a deep breath. “He also warned me not to let my fear of the answers get in the way of asking the questions.”
“That sounds like him,” she said, standing a little straighter to wipe the counter with her dish towel.
“I don’t even know where to begin, sometimes,” I whispered, mostly to myself.
“Didn’t Hart just try to take you with him to the meeting? That seemed like a good opportunity.”
