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I nod a single gesture, firm.

And that’s all he needs to leave me behind in the lobby.

I watch him go, and when he’s disappeared into the dusk of Hemlock House, I decide I will feel safe with Rune in the Sacrament. I will go to him if I see him, and I will seek safety in our familiarity.

Perhaps we have the young bud of a friendship, as I do with Dare, and maybe as I do with Ridge. And it’s all such a deflating shame, because in just a few phases, all of it will be taken from me, whether I survive or not, I will not have these friendships again.

That sadness is hollow in my chest.

I rush to Aleana’s bedchamber.

I tell her about Rune, about the knock on the door that she should expect later this phase.

Then I help her primp.

Perched on a chair’s whose seat is a velveteen button-tufted cushion, Aleana’s sharp eyes trace my movements in the gloss of the mirror.

I push a stool up beside hers then drop onto it with a soft thud.

I stroke my fingers down the carved wood handle of the hotbrush, triggering the enchantment. As it heats, I use my fingers to comb oils through Aleana’s hair. Its crisp, citrus smell is refreshing, and it perks me awake a little more.

Must be a soothing sensation, because her lashes are quick to flicker shut and her shoulders slump.

The hotbrush glows like embers in a hearth when it’s hot enough. I wipe my oiled hands on a cloth, then move for the polished blackwood handle.

I comb the searing bristles through her hair. Oils soak the strands, seal them from the enchanted brush. Stops her hair from roasting on her head, like a cooked bird in the hotbox.

Aleana turns her cheek to me.

She reaches down to the bottom drawer of the vanity table, fingers it open, then fishes around in its barely-open darkness.

I’m just about to abandon her smoothing locks to help her fight this drawer when the thick glass knocks on wood.

I look down as she pulls out a bottle of half-drunk honeywine.

The look I give her is plain at first. Then the guilty smile flushes her, and all I can do to bite down on my cheeks.

Figures.

Of all the things she can’t have and shouldn’t do, she has honeywine stashed away in her bedchamber, she has tonics to keep her up and going, she has trips to the human lands to find adventure.

And I would likely be the same in this subtle defiance if I was sickly. So I have no cross words for her.

Aleana tugs the cork out of the bottle.

The swig she guzzles is a generous one.

I watch her throat bob before she’s had enough.

The bottle pops from her lips with a sigh. She settles it on her lap where she nurses it.

I say, soft. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

She shakes her head.

“If you’ve changed your mind—”

“I want this.”