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I quickly grabbed my outfit and put it on, and walked downstairs to find Calix in the kitchen.

He looked up at me and smiled. “Not bad, kid.”

For a split second I thought he was talking about the shower, then I quickly realized my guilty conscious was toying with me and he was talking about dinner. “Thanks!” I perked up a little, even though the nerves about their decision was tearing up my stomach.

I glanced at Gage to see if I could get a read on what he saw, but he wouldn’t look at me. Was that on purpose?

I searched around the room to find Enzo and he wasn’t looking at me either, which told me all I needed to know.

They decided, and it wasn’t good.

Barrett cleared his throat. “Scarlet.” Everyone looked at him, including Gage. “We’ve been talking… the better part of the day, actually. It seems you have caused quite the stir in our house.”

I went to apologize, but he continued talking.

“There are some here who have doubts about your story and are concerned it will bring trouble to our house.”

I tried to stare straight ahead at the knot on the wall so tears didn’t betray my anxiety. It was weird, I realized. I wasn’t as sad about leaving the castle as I was this place. I had more interaction with these seven men in the short time I was with them than I had with all the people at the castle in the last several years.

“Will you bring trouble?”

I sighed, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I don’t think I will, but I can’t say for certain. I’ve seen more care from you all since I’ve been with you than I have from my family in all my years combined, so I don’t imagine anyone will come from me. They probably already assume I’m dead, but I guess in some ways I have been dead to them for a while.” I looked down, playing with the hem of my skirt.

Barrett listened thoughtfully, processing everything I had just said, and then nodded. “That was a fair and honest answer.”

I pinched my lips in a hard line and nodded.

“We would like to welcome you to stay with us.”

“Yes!” Enzo shouted, standing up.

Barrett looked at him. “Wait. Before you get too excited.”

I looked between the two of them, with my gaze quickly flitting to Gage. I found myself wanting to know what he felt, even though I didn’t know why I cared. When I didn’t get any emotional response from him, I looked back at Barrett.

“We can’t have drama in the house, so as long as that doesn’t happen because of you, then you are welcome to stay here. You will need to continue to help around the house to earn your keep. That is the rule we all live by here. We all contribute.”

I nodded emphatically. “Absolutely. Absolutely. I will do whatever you want. Anything. You name it.”

“Stay out of my shower.” Gage snapped.

I looked at him, but said nothing. I would have to learn to bite my tongue around him.

“You did good today. If you can clean around the house, do our laundry, help harvest the garden and you seem to have a skill with the bow. Those would all be a good start.”

“Absolutely!”

“I will still cook, but every once in a while if you want to help with that too, that would be nice.” Calix added.

“Absolutely!”

I was so excited right now that Gage’s sour mood couldn’t touch it.

“Perfect.” He looked around the room. “We will eat dinner now and talk about sleeping arrangements.”

“Oh.” I would share a bed with someone? I immediately looked around the room to figure out who it would be.

Barrett chuckled. “Oh. You won’t be sleeping in our rooms. We have space in the attic. There’s a window and everything. It’s just obviously on the top floor and there’s junk we can go through tomorrow, but it can be your space.”