Elloven added deep cleaning to her list of things to do before leaving again. She couldn’t allow her mother to wallow in such squalor. If she could find the gold, she’d hire a proper caretaker. She thought of Jesstin’s offer to come to Mythgarde, and an even darker thought crossed her mind, that she had her own services to peddle, if she could find the courage. What men had taken with impunity, she could sell with discretion.
“Mama, I need something from you, and you’ll want to say no, as you always have. I need you to say yes this time though, because I’m lost, and there’s only one place in this realm I can be found.”
Esmeray’s brows formed an angry line. “No, you only think those people can help you, but you wouldn’t ask me this if you knew who they really were. Their aid comes with a cost no soul should pay.”
“Those people are our people.”
“Would that they were not.” Esmeray’s breath rattled on intake.
“I deserve to know why you left and why you won’t let me go to them.” Elloven reached for her mother’s hands under the blankets. “My magic is chaos. Pure, unbridled chaos, and I don’t even know how it works, how far it goes! I’m terrified, terrified to find out the wrong way.”
“Best you never know, for chaos magic is the darkest and most dangerous. Ellie. Hear me, please. If I thought they could help you, love, I would have sent you there myself, years ago.”
“Mama, I can’t stay here forever. Lord Quinlanden will find a way around the problem of my sanctuary.”
“You’re safer here than you’d ever be with our people.”
“Until some sellsword breaks into our home in the night!”
“No,” Esmeray insisted. “No, Elloven.”
Elloven frowned. “Why are you so afraid of them?”
“There are some who are like us,” Esmeray said after a pause. “Who can still see the lines demarcating good from evil. There are others, too many, who believe them to be one and the same and will use that deliberate misunderstanding to justify monstrous acts. To perform unconscionable acts that could never be undone.”
“Like what?”
“Not tonight. Not...” Esmeray’s eyes closed. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Let me just hold you, love, like you let me do when you were still a girl and none of this...”
With an uneven sigh, Elloven inched closer. She nuzzled her face next to her mother’s on the pillow, the warmth of her soft, wrinkled hands a heartbreaking comfort after the years of panic and fear and suffering that would always be hers to carry. Hers to resolve.
Within minutes, Esmeray was snoring.
Elloven wished she could join her, but there could be no rest, no peace, until she had a way forward.
Chapter 4
The Ivory Virtues of Temptation
Jesstin managed only an hour of sleep and woke thinking about Elloven. He was hard again, but unlike most of his troubles, that one would resolve.
Those final moments at Nightwood wouldn’t leave his thoughts. She hadn’t demurred or pretended not to know about Mythgarde, but it was difficult to tell whether her sharp brow raise had been curiosity or condemnation. He wasn’t likely to see her again, and that was probably best.
Leaving the Hermitage without running into anyone was the goal, and he almost made it to the stables. Rhiain never followed him, not anymore, so when he reached for the door, he was startled to see her, bundled in her furs with a solemn expression, though he wasn’t surprised. He’d evaded her long enough.
“You come home in the early hours, sleep all day, and sneak about like a burglar?” She pushed off the planks and approached him. Her dark-red hair had a menacing tinge in the twilight darkness. But while he wouldn’t want to be her enemy, when it came to her family, she was warm and caring. “Last night you were home early, and you didn’t even say hello.”
“Early for me, but late for you.”
“Don’t avoid my point.”
“Baroness Hawthorne had use of me, as I think you know.” His eyes shot toward the stable door.
There was no sidestepping her. She’d trained for several years under her father Mathias Skylark’s Riverhelm Revenant assassins, a punishment for disobeying his strict standards, and she had no trouble blending with the shadows or racing the sun. Her work with Asterin, collecting rare and sometimes incendiary documents from around the realm, had only honed her skills. “That must have been hard for you, Jess, but it was good of you to do.” She smiled sadly. “I know you miss Gen. We do too. I’d like to invite the baroness and her daughter for supper one night, but only if you’re comfortable with it.”
“Mm,” he said, neither willing to commit nor upset her.
But Rhiain wasn’t standing out there at dusk waiting for him because she wanted to chat about supper plans. “We need to talk. You and me, Jess.”
