Page 37

By the time I return to the estate, my hem is damp, my folio is heavier than it ought to be, and Corin’s voice has taken up residence beneath my ribs with entirely too much confidence.

The servants’ gate admits me through a narrow side arch veined with old ward script, the kind that hums softly when crossed by anyone carrying unauthorized magic. I keep my pace even as the arch tests me. Its power glides over my skin in a thin, needling pass, searching for stolen objects, concealed charms, curse residue, and the sort of incompetently hidden contraband that gets kitchen boys whipped and housemaids dismissed. It does not search for a bond. It does not know how.

That is fortunate, because the bond has followed me home like a secret too warm to hide.

Inside, the estate reasserts itself with polished cruelty. The corridor floors gleam black beneath the sconces. The lamps burn with blue-white spellflame that casts no smoke and flatters no one. The walls carry the faint scent of ward-resin, beeswax, expensive ink, and the cold floral oil Lord Vaerith favors in public rooms, a fragrance so delicate it somehow makes every breath feel supervised.

Mira appears from a laundry alcove before I reach the east stair. She carries a stack of folded linens high enough to justify being wherever she pleases, and her eyes move over me in one fast, worried sweep that lingers just slightly at my mouth, as though checking whether I have returned frightened, smiling, or bleeding.

“You’re late,” she murmurs.

The words are mild. The tension beneath them is not.

“I was delayed.”

“That is what people say when they have been doing something worse than being delayed.”

“I delivered the registry correction.”

“Did the registry correction have dark hair and glowing eyes?”

My mouth threatens to betray me. I stop it before the expression can fully form, though Mira catches enough to narrow her eyes.

“Lower your voice,” I say quietly.

“So that means yes.”

“It means the corridor has ears.”

“The corridor has ears, eyes, and probably a nasty little mouth that reports to Vaerith after supper.” She shifts the linens higher against her hip and leans closer, lowering her voice until it barely disturbs the air between us. “Tell me you did not meet him alone.”

“We were in a public courtyard.”

“That is not the same as no.”

“Later, we were in a passage.”

Mira closes her eyes for a moment and tips her head back against the wall with the exhausted patience of a woman reconsidering every life decision that led her here.

“Iso,” she says softly, dragging my name out like a prayer abandoned halfway through.

“I was careful.”

Her brows lift slowly. “Were you?”

“Mostly.”

“That word is going to put me in an early grave.”

I glance down the corridor. A pair of dark elf clerks moves past the far archway, their voices clipped and bored, neither looking toward us because humans with linens and folios occupy the same mental category as furniture unless something is on fire.

Once they pass, I angle my body to shield my mouth.

“He restrained himself,” I say.

Mira’s expression changes immediately. The sarcasm drains away, leaving something sharper and more alert behind it.

“From what?”