Page 22 of When the Sky Breaks

“And, Neal?” Sorcha called after me. “Thank you.”

Eleven

Sorcha

I’d had started dreading dinner—me, Ansel, and Neal in our previously disused formal dining room. It felt like a business meeting every damn night—somehow worse than the nights I’d spent eating in my office talking shop with Neal before Ansel arrived. I’d warmed up to Ansel, mostly. But I quietly mourned the days of sitting in the kitchen with Nokona, eating homemade Comanche food. She offered, every night. And every night Ansel insisted we had work to do and so I was forced to decline.

I knew Ansel in particular couldn’t stomach the chilis. Neal had sweat through it and kept his mouth shut.

We’d spent the last three weeks digging up anything we could on the portals but turning up precious little. Ansel had sent word to New York for more research and to have them look into Iksura’s likely fabricated claim about my title. But progress was agonizingly slow. I was still wracking my brain as to how Iksura’s suitor had managed to get here in what looked like only three to four days instead of the usual several-month timeline. Neal was obsessing over guard rotations, and Ansel was trying to keep miscellaneous complaints about minor supernatural events off my desk. It was starting to wear on all of us. Tempers ran short. Patience wore thin. And careful, professional boundaries were now definitively a thing of the past.

“Sorcha, you’re barely touching your plate,” Ansel said. “You feeling alright?”

“I was out with the bears this afternoon. Berries are good this time of year,” I lied. “I ate a lot on the trail.”

I had been out riding all afternoon and I had seen the bears, but berries wouldn’t flush for weeks. I was avoiding food because I’d almost vomited up porridge this morning, so there was no way the beef stew Ansel had ordered for tonight was staying down.

He didn’t need to know that yet.

“But if you’re starting to show symptoms?” Ansel waved his fork vaguely. “What I’m trying to say is, if you’re carrying, we can always adjust our plans.”

“We don’t have plans, Ansel,” I said. “We’re barely treading water right now.”

“You said you were late,” Neal added. “Last night. In bed.”

Ansel cracked a smile. Neal had slept in my bed since that awful night five weeks back.

I hated myself for it. Hated that I still wanted him to hold me after what he’d done.

But I kept dragging him there—some nights at dusk once I knew Ansel had shut himself in his office to work, some not until the horrible pre-dawn when I was inevitably awake alone and miserable. But one way or another? I woke up in his arms every morning.

We’d kissed again. Once. Briefly. On a particularly grueling night, when I’d been up at two in the morning in tears over the utter chaos that had derailed my life and fallen prey to some primal desire for closeness, connection, and safety. We hadn’t mentioned it to Ansel. I’d told the owl who lived out in the barn rafters—not a soul else.

“Why are we talking about this at dinner?” I asked.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ansel asked, voice growing scolding.

“Because I’m not that late, and I don’t have any symptoms, and I just don’t know right now,” I snapped. It wasn’t true. I was thirteen days past due. I’d been sweating buckets for almost a week, regardless of temperature. The nausea had hit this morning, and I could feel something in my body shifting. But I wasn’t ready to have that conversation yet—not with Ansel, not at dinner. I was about to get up from the table when someone knocked at the door.

“I’ll get it,” Neal offered, leaving me to slouch into my seat and bury my face in my hands—desperate to avoid eye contact.

Neal returned moments later.

“We have a visitor.” His voice was sharp, uncharacteristically so.

“Hello, High Lady Wilson.” The voice was unfamiliar—with a vaguely Russian accent—dripping with some uncomfortable mixture of self-confidence and repressed rage.

I picked my head up.

“We don’t take visitors after eight,” I replied—deadpan. “It struck half past already. Go.”

“I’m your new Inner Court Emissary, Iosif,” our guest replied—he was tall, black hair slicked back, expensive suit, oddly tidy for coming in off the road. “That technically makes me part of the household, doesn’t it? Won’t you set a plate for me?”

“Jeremy was never part of the household,” I said bluntly. “You aren’t either. Neal will schedule a time you can come back and talk shop. Until then I suggest you find yourself a hotel or a tent.”

“Oh, so she’s every bit as stubborn as Alexi said?” The man chuckled. “This’ll be fun.”

“Out,” I snapped.