“Why have you all not done more to fix what’s happened to Infinita Mori? Rivenholde is supposed to look after the dead, not abandon them.” Elloven then held her tongue, knowing the answer would come regardless. From her aunt, from the sky, from her heart. It would come.
Velanthe exhaled her smoke, her eyes closed. “Because we don’t know how, Aelloven.” She turned a glazed look on Elloven. “We’ve been waiting a very long time for someone who can reopen the way to the Halls of Ilyn for the dead. It would reopen all portails, including the ones between the Coventicular of the Seven and the Coventicular dos Sete. We could finally return to Ilynglass. I believe that was the intention all along, not to curse the dead but to close the pathways between worlds. The dead suffer either way.”
Another mention of Ilynglass. Either it was one big, long con or they really believed in it. “Why would someone want to close these portails?” She couldn’t keep the disbelief from her tone.
Velanthe cocked her head. “With access comes power,” she said, as though that explained everything.
Elloven didn’t mean to laugh, but it all sounded so absurd.
It was the wrong move though, because her aunt’s openness slammed shut. “There’s a lot you missed by being raised beyond our borders.” Velanthe licked her lips. “We’ll soon see which you regret more. Your ignorance or your enlightenment.”
“I want to go back,” Elloven said. She clutched her chest. The pain wasn’t physical, but the ache was undeniable. The... yearning, unlike anything she’d felt before. It was the cursed bond. The absence. This time, it wasn’t a consequence of distance but time. Hours and hours had passed since they’d left the croft.
“To the ghastly marionette show?”
“To Jesstin.”
“Are you in pain?”
“Tell me where he is. Please.”
“I’ll escort you myself,” Velanthe said pleasantly and pushed up off the blanket. “It’s time anyway. You’re expected.”
“Time for what?” Elloven asked, but her cagey aunt was done talking. She watched her walk away.
“Coming?” Velanthe called over her shoulder as she continued down the hill.
Frustrated as ever, but with no better option, Elloven ran after her.
Chapter 13
Call to the Skies
“They’re saying it’s going to be canceled.” Lexsea flopped back on her gold-draped seat. She glanced at Jesstin with a fatalistic pout, but there was something disingenuous in her words, as though her internal feelings didn’t match the show she was putting on. “How many years have they been doing this? They’ve really trained no one else?”
Jesstin didn’t care what they were waiting for, what was being canceled, or what Lexsea was actually upset about. She’d been a menace from the moment they’d taken their seats in the pretor’s box. He’d tried to listen as Estelar had explained the event, but his fucking daughter had his willpower in a psychic vise. He’d tried so hard to ignore her, to repel her, he’d been focused on nothing else.
“Patience,” Ryquin said. He picked at a bowl of round, plump fruit that had been waiting for them when they’d arrived. The juicy orbs looked like grapes but with a deep-bluish hue. Jesstin gawped at the man like he’d lost his mind when he offered some. “They’ll have a plan. They always do.”
A sly grin formed as Lexsea moved one hand to Jesstin’s leg, wasting no time before traveling it to the interior of his thigh. He started to tell her to stop, but his mouth couldn’t form any words of objection. He hadn’t seen Elloven or Sesto—or Taven—in hours, though Elloven couldn’t be too far, or he’d feel her absence like a splitting headache. The division was intentional, and so was whatever the hell Lexsea was doing to him. “Ry says you’ve agreed to help us. Can I just say?—”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Jesstin said, cutting in. He’d resisted women twice as attractive, three times as charming, but none had used magic to control him.
“That wasn’t very lovely now, was it?” Her nails dug gently into his thigh, and he throbbed harder, horrified. He was so desperate, he even considered trying to catch Ryquin’s notice in a way that would convey what he couldn’t actually say because of the witch’s block. But what exactly could he even convey, that a beautiful woman wouldn’t leave him alone? No one would take him seriously.
Jesstin squeezed his legs together and craned, searching for anyone he knew, but the crowd was too thick to see more than a few rows on either side of their box. “Where are my friends?” he asked, squirming, his voice broken.
“Friends.” Lexsea chuckled. “The woman you’re bound to by magic, the eunuch bound to you by honor, and the man you dream of sending to join all the lost souls in the Infinitum?”
“Aelloven will want to see this. Don’t worry,” Ryquin said. “And there she is now.”
Elloven came stumbling up the small set of steps, catching herself on the railing with an ungraceful yelp. She covered a belch with an inelegant giggle. Her cheeks were bright red, and her eyes were so glossed, it immediately had him straightening in attention. The woman from the night before, who’d said nothing at supper, was behind her but didn’t follow her up the stairs, or help her. No sign of Taven or Sesto.
“Is she drunk?” Jesstin knew the answer already. He’d seen the same sloppy behavior in newcomers to the Row who didn’t know their limits.
“I see our aunt has indoctrinated Elloven with that morbid tradition. Great timing, Velanthe, as always,” Lexsea joked. “This should be fun. Unsafe and utterly deranged, but fun.”
Ryquin made a snickering sound. “She’ll be fine.”
