All the rest. He almost laughed. “I am. But they could never understand.”
“No, no one could, right?”
His mouth hitched. “Do you actually want to see the Azure?”
Elloven’s hands swept down her face. “Is there anything about the way I’m looking at you that would suggest I’m not serious?”
He laughed. “I have to warn you?—”
She gestured for him to stop. “I wish you wouldn’t. I like surprises, if they’re good.”
Jesstin smirked. “Depends on your definition of ‘good.’”
Elloven leaned in with a thoughtful expression. “You look at me and see a woman who’s been abused and wounded. You see the scars.”
“No, no?—”
“You do. Everyone does. Maybe you see past them, but...” She breathed deep. “I’m not my scars. I’m not what those men did to me. What Taven did to me. What your half brother, Castien, did to me. I’m so much more, Jesstin, but I’m tired, and I don’t have the fight left to convince others to know me for who I am. So if this place is as you say? Somewhere I can be whomever I want to be? That would be my very definition of good.”
Jesstin didn’t see her for her scars, but he had no idea how to convey that in a way she’d believe. He was intrigued more by what he couldn’t see. He wished he could look at her and say honestly, I do see. I see all of it.
“Then let’s go.” He barely got the last word out before a shadow spread over the table.
Elloven’s cringe answered the question before Jesstin even looked up.
Jesstin rallied a patronizing grin. “Ah, Considine. Didn’t figure you for a purveyor of illicit experiences.”
“Get. Up.” Taven’s nose flared as he took a loud, sharp breath. His face wasn’t even red but purple, as though his anger had had more than enough time to simmer. “Ellie, not you. Him.”
“Look at you, giving orders like anyone gives a fuck.”
Taven made a sound like he was burying a grunt. “You and I are going to have a word. Outside. Now.”
With a chuckle, Jesstin looked around, taking in all the eyes turned their way. Fights were nothing unusual along the Row, though they usually started farther down the line and later in the night. He’d been in plenty himself. Started some of them. Won most of them.
It had been a while though, and there were few people he wanted to punch as much as the pathetic excuse for a man standing beside the table.
But it was the blazing panic in Elloven’s eyes that stayed him from another easy victory.
Jesstin clicked his tongue. “Nah.”
“Did you...” Taven’s cheeks puffed in fury. He whipped his gaze between Jesstin and Elloven. “You’re a bold little bastard, aren’t you? Sliding your way into Ellie’s life when the blood of her late husband hasn’t even cooled?”
“I thought we all agreed he deserved to die?” That was another thing he and Elloven had in common. Neither was afraid to take a life.
“You’re walking a fine line,” Taven said through clenched teeth. Spittle landed on the table. “We can do this outside, or we can do this here. Your choice.”
More people had turned to watch. They’d expect a fight, and Jesstin ached to give them one, but he was unsettled by what he saw in Elloven’s expression. Alarm, but not for herself.
There’s no way she thinks Considine could take me.
Then it hit him. Taven came from the same mountains as her people. His magic was unpredictable.
“Taven,” Elloven said slowly. She seemed to be working herself up to something, gathering like a storm. “You need to leave.”
“I intend to, once this illborn stands and faces me.”
Jesstin grinned at the table and pushed back, the thrill of a fight already pumping through his veins. He heard a sharp breath from Elloven and looked up just in time to dodge Taven’s sloppy swing.
