Page 145 of Queen of Nothing

His silence holds for the imps.

His eyes are tired, lashes low, dark circles made even darker by the low light in the bedchamber—but there are questions in those shadowy green eyes. And he lifts them to me every so often, even when he’s coiling the bandage around my foot, and still, he doesn’t voice his questions.

Not in front of prying ears.

The imps tend to the fire, stack more into the hearth, before they leave.

And the moment they do, skurrying out through the vents, Oliver sighs, exhausted.

Returning to my desk, he pours another drink for himself, one that might push him into migraine territory. He picks through the papers that poke out of the swollen folder.

My tears stopped a while ago.

They are dried on my cheeks, itchy and raw, and my face is puffy.

I’m suspended in a numb state, like my brain shut down but my body didn’t, and now I just exist on the chaise.

The firelight dances over the back of Oliver’s black shirt as he says, “Asta told me.”

I hug a feather-stuffed pillow and rest my chin on it. “Told you what?”

Gods, my voice sounds like it’s been dragged over diamonds and crushed glass.

I probably look as rough as I sound.

“The night ended downstairs. Amelia took the car home. I assume it returned for Dray, because he had no trouble in storming out of here.”

I fix a frown on his back.

Chestnut hair glistens like caramel in the light, much warmer than the ashy dullness of my own.

Because I was just a lookalike.

A ‘close enough’, probably.

An adopted krum with brown hair, even if it is ashy, and hazel irises, somewhere close to my father’s green eyes.

I look at my brother, knowing he isn’t my brother, knowing he isn’t my twin, and it doesn’t feel real.

“Mother retired for the night. Grandmother returned to the cottage. I retired to my chamber, and Asta was awake. She mentioned that she saw Dray leave with blood on his hand.”

I mumble, hoarse, “Did she wait up to tell you that? Does she not have servants to do things like that back home?”

There should be more derision in my tone. I just can’t manage to summon it.

I only know my feelings about Asta—and I hate that she’s here, in my home.

Just the thought of her waiting up for my brother, in his bed, grosses me out… even in this haze.

“It is three in the morning,” Oliver says and turns to face me. “Most of the house is asleep. And you would do well to acknowledge that Asta did in fact stay up to inform me before the news could reach Mr Younge, then Father. She gave me a headstart.”

The meaningful look he aims at me is less powerful in all its weariness.

But I get it. He’s telling me that Asta really gave me a headstart.

That, thanks to her, I have time to get my story straight before Father storms in here with my reckoning.

I scoff, tired. The feathers in the pillow rustle.