Page 97

“Your home is hollow.” Eamon falls back to recline against the doorframe. “Nari needs life. Nari is life.”

Under his breath, Dare murmurs, “Is that why she’s always sneaking out of her dead home?”

He draws away from the thick curtains and makes for the narrow bed across the room. As he always did in our years at the barracks, he starts to batter his too fluffy pillow. Prefers them flat like boards.

I set my jaw. “Then I will keep her at Kithe.”

That home is often more vibrant than the one in the Shadow Court.

Aleana prefers it, since the town is just a wandering stroll away.

Dare’s home village is close, so he visits often.

Rune and Samick will lodge there, when they have the time to come.

And there is just enough garden space for Nari to fill with the creatures she thinks beautiful. Ghastly beasts, from faerie hounds that devour souls to pesky pixies if she so dreams.

Kithe will be her home.

Dare throws himself onto the bed. “Do you fancy the halfling, Eamon? For a same lover, you’re quite keen on keeping her for yourself.”

A fragrance of honey and milk whispers from him. From beneath the fresh soap, I place the scent to a female he was courting in lessons, some naïve halfling too human for her own good.

It’s all in the chase for him. Then his interest will flicker, almost fade, and with that will come a crushing sense of depravation. Dare will close off, submerge himself in a mood that makes him a pain to be around for weeks—then the flicker will return for another.

An eternal search in vain.

Eamon throws a dark look at his fellow hybrid. “Not all love is between the legs. Something you might learn one day.”

Dare rolls onto his side. “Lights out.”

“Wear yourself out?” Eamon snarls the words before he turns and stalks out of the room. Just to be an ass, he leaves the dooropen and so, with a sigh, I push up from the wall and close it myself.

His back to me, Dare yawns. “You know why he fights this.”

In answer, I’m silent. Because no, I do not know why my cousin tries to keep Nari and I apart. But Dare is perceptive, more than any other I know. It is his future to read folk, since he will choose a particular career of secrets, daggers and shadows.

I drop onto the edge of my bed. And wait.

Dare pulls the fur over himself. “He thinks she’ll bungle. And that will incur your wrath. He is afraid for what her consequences will be when she either loses interest in you—or betrays you. It is Nari he doesn’t trust.”

For a long moment, I sit here. Hands on my knees, still, silent.

Then I dismiss it with a huff and roll onto the mattress.

I don’t sleep. I frown at the total darkness of the wall.

16

††††††

Phases snail past me.

All I do is fester in this bed.

Time moves on beyond the door and the windows, but in here, I have become one with the bed, I have moulded into the mattress, I have learned every divot and contour of the ceiling above me.

It’s best when I find sleep in the haze of it all.