For once, Yselle did not look amused. She looked pale beneath the polish, as if the ledger had stripped too much and she had not yet rebuilt the surface.
“You bleed neatly,” Yselle said.
“You do not bleed at all where they can see.”
“That is the first lesson.”
“No,” Sabine said. “It is the first lie.”
Yselle’s expression shifted.
Something almost like respect.
“We are still rivals.”
“I know.”
“Recognition does not change that.”
“It makes the knives cleaner.”
Yselle nodded once and walked away.
Lucien intercepted Sabine near the archive stair.
He did not speak. He simply caught her wrist and pulled her into the shadowed alcove where the stair turned and servants would hear footsteps long before seeing them.
His breathing was uneven. His face was controlled, but his eyes were too dark.
Sabine touched his jaw.
“You said you failed to save her. Publicly.”
“I gave Serast enough truth to stop him turning Isolde into a weapon without giving him the full blade.”
“The court heard guilt.”
“Guilt is safer than the truth.” His hand came up and covered hers where it rested against his face. “If I said the rite killed her, Serast would call it blasphemy. If I said the temple altered the vow, he would demand proof I do not have yet. So I said what they already believe. That I failed. That I carry blood. That I am dangerous to the women I choose.”
“You are not dangerous to me.”
“I am the reason you are being questioned, pressured, and threatened.” His voice roughened. “The bond makes you vulnerable. My history makes you a target. Serast knows the Isolde thread is close to the surface now.”
Sabine stepped closer.
“Then we use it. We stop hiding from what the court already suspects and start making them afraid of what we know.”
Lucien’s control cracked.
He pulled her against him, one hand sliding into her hair, the other gripping her waist. His forehead rested against hers.
“If I touch you the way I want to,” he said roughly, “every servant in this corridor will know before supper.”
“They know already.”
“Then we should stop rewarding them with evidence.”
He kissed her once.
