Hush now, he said in his head, feeling absolutely foolish. I’ll hear your pleas later.
The voices stopped. Suddenly, immediately, and completely.
Ryquin waggled his brows and finally looked away.
“We could spend all night in discussion, but it’s time to rest.” Estelar pushed back from the table. He waited while an attendant wiped his face with a napkin. “Jesstin and Sesto, we do not often allow outsiders on our lands, but one of you is bound to one of us by magic, and the other is harmless. Still, there are many in Rivenholde who will not welcome you, and you’d be well-advised not to wander alone.”
“Harmless?” Sesto bristled.
“We’ve prepared two crofts, both within a short walk of the sept, down the hill a bit,” Tansea said. She endured the same ceremonial face-wiping. “Aelloven and Jesstin, you’ll stay in one, for practical purposes. The bond can be fickle about distance. Taven and Sesto will take the other. You’ll find clothes and other necessities have already been laid out for you.”
“Now, wait,” Taven said, his cool guise slipping as he grew heated. “I should be with Elloven. It would be improper for her to stay so close to him, without a chaperone, when she and I are betrothed.”
“The word means nothing here, Taven,” Estelar said. “This is how you will stay while you are here.”
“Wonderful,” Sesto muttered as he shoved back. “Splendid.”
Jesstin was surprisingly relieved at the arrangement. Gennady wasn’t the only one who was wary of the place. Jesstin was still angry with Elloven, but more than that, he was worried for her. In the space of a meal, she’d learned Wilder Hawthorne was not her father, her name wasn’t the one she’d been born with, and this birthmark Taven so blithely talked about wasn’t incidental.
He hadn’t stopped thinking about the Night Soul either. Whether he had created an illusion of her or she’d been there herself, somehow, in a shared experience, he didn’t know. Both seemed possible after the cyclone of insanity that had been heaped upon his feet in the past week. He leaned toward the whole thing being a dream, if not for the damned necklace, but the only way to know was to ask her, and he didn’t particularly want to.
Elloven searched for his gaze from beside him.
He didn’t return it.
“I’ll fix this, Ellie,” Taven said, but no one paid him mind.
Tansea clapped her gloved hands together. “Shall we?”
The “croft” was a pitched cabin made of stone and a thatched roof. In contrast to the elaborateness of the sept, it reminded Elloven more of the simplicity of Nightwood. She took comfort in it, like everything else in Rivenholde so far.
Taven lingered on the stoop, but she was too exhausted to manage his mood. She could almost feel his dejected flinch when Jesstin kicked the door closed on him.
The inside was modest and cozy, with a tall hearth stretching from the main floor into the loft, which was an open sleeping area. There were several high-backed chairs for socializing and a small table for eating, beside which was a stove with a hook.
“Guess I’m sleeping on the floor,” Jesstin said with a look around. “If there’s an extra blanket, I’ll take it. A pillow. Something.”
Elloven peered up into the loft at the single bed. It was large enough for them both, but even the thought of lying next to him all night made her anxious. Had Estelar assumed they would want to share? Surely there were crofts with more than one sleeping area.
Taven had accused her of sacrificing herself twice for someone she didn’t even know, and now, standing next to the man in question, wondering what to say, she actually felt shame.
Shame for having done it.
For having not listened.
For having made a fool of herself.
For allowing her exhaustion to supplant her thoughtfulness when she said, “I’ll bring one down for you.”
He chuckled to himself and went to examine the hearth.
It hit her suddenly she was standing on a woven rug in the middle of a cabin—croft—in her homeland. The idea was so surreal, she missed a step and nearly fell up the stairs.
She gripped the bottom of the railing, embarrassed. Jesstin was still warming himself by the fire and hadn’t noticed. If Taven were there, he’d have already been smothering her.
Elloven climbed up into the loft bedroom, every step heavier than the last. It was as humble as the first floor, with only a bed, a bureau, and a desk with a chair. She didn’t have to search long for the blankets. The extras were stacked in a neat pile on the end of the bed.
She jumped when Jesstin appeared behind her. He went out of his way not to look at her when he reached down and gathered two from the stack.
