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“—it,” Ava finished slower. “One of you can sleep in the hall for all I care, but stay upstairs. Whitlock will pass for help if anyone happens to stop by, so he can stay down here.”

Lilith mumbled a “yes ma’am,” and started up the stairs with a now wide awake Jarek draped over her shoulders. The dreaded room was large, matching much of the same atmosphere downstairs. There was a lit hearth, a washroom, and a single bed, large enough to accommodate all of the Imordials if need be, with space in between.

Lilith lingered in the doorway.

“Is there, uh, room with the girls?” Jarek asked. “If that makes you more comfortable…”

“Girl,” Lilith corrected, face heavy. “She wants to be alone.”

She crossed the threshold and sat him on the bed along with her pack.

Were they not successful in rescuing both? Jarek opened his mouth to inquire further, but Lilith quickly adjusted herself, perking up and spinning back to him with a hollow smile.

“It’s the room,” she said, mask back in place. “I forgot how nice it is.”

Whatever happened during the time he lost upset her. He knew it would in some way. Using the Wraith at all was going to be hard on her. If only one of the girls escaped, he could guess what went wrong.

He understood her avoidance but also knew the damage it did keeping it inside. Though he didn’t mind his suffering, it wasn’t something he wanted for her. Still, he glanced around, taking the hint that she didn’t want to discuss it.

It wasn’t the most lavish room he’d stayed in. Certainly the best he’d had in his second life.

“But if you’re not comfortable, I can curl up on the floor or somewhere else. Ava’s study has a bench.”

Jarek noted then too that Lilith, having grown up in a small village and spending most of her later years in Reave’s slums, might not have had regular access to rooms this immaculate. She should have the opportunity to sleep in one.

She dragged a finger down the bedpost. “Or I can squeeze in next to Aarin—”

“No,” he said, rather unexpectedly. “I am comfortable with—” You. “This. Don’t sleep on the floor or anywhere else.”

Lilith shrugged indifferently, then plopped down beside him, yellow humor clinging to her frame. As she dug through her pack, she turned to a staring Jarek.

A real smile broke past her fake one. “What?”

She was teasing him and had gotten away with it. Jarek’s stomach burned at the prospect. It most certainly wasn’t for any other reason, especially not the image of her sleeping beside Aarin after first hating his guts, then being so clearly worried for his well-being when they arrived. Why in all things under the sun would that bother him?

Jarek’s vexation slowly lifted at the idea she would rather sleep next to him than Aarin. And he… well, he didn’t quite know how to feel about it. Flattered was a start.

“If you wanted to share a bed with me, you didn’t have to dance around it,” he told her.

“Fine then. Can I please sleep here with you, Master Atwood? I’ll try to stay on my best behavior.”

“That is not what I was getting at.” He motioned briefly to his injured arm. “Considering I’m not exactly in the best condition to—”

She tugged at the brown overcoat he was wearing. “I need you to take this off.”

Jarek froze. The three hundred years of a dry spell was not doing his imagination any favors. She was being facetious moments ago, but the serious, sultry tone behind the command almost had him obeying without a second thought. At what point did the harmless flirting turn into… that?

Sweltering heat rushed to his cheeks among other places until Lilith pulled a small pouch from her bag and unzipped it, revealing needles, forceps, sutures, and bandages, forming the pieces of a puzzle that was much less enticing.

“Ah-ha!” She lifted a small, flat container high in front of her. “Picked this up in Gridian. It should dull the sting a little thanks to those wonderful trees I’m supposed to destroy. Well? What are you waiting for? I need to see your arm.”

Jarek’s gaze flicked to the kit and away from Lilith’s eager expression.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I’m…” He chuckled. “Needles and I aren’t on the best of terms.”

“Oh. I would’ve done it while you were unconscious, but conditions weren’t the best, and I didn’t want to get close to the Serpent being the way it is. I can try something else too?” She trailed off, graciously lifted from the bed, and strode into the hall.