Page 18 of The Demon’s Little Girl

LIORA

T he kitchen feels different at night. During the day, it hums with activity—Akira barking orders, Tom rushing between tasks, the constant clatter of preparation and cleanup.

But now, with only the gentle crackle of banked embers in the hearth and moonlight streaming through the windows, it's transformed into something quieter. More intimate.

I move carefully around the familiar space, muscle memory guiding me to the right cupboards even in the dim light.

Finding the tin of meadowmint tea, measuring leaves into the ceramic pot with practiced ease.

The routine is soothing in a way I desperately need after spending the day walking on eggshells, trying to figure out where I fit in a place that used to feel like home.

The kettle whispers as it heats, and I lean against the counter, letting my shoulders drop for the first time all day.

Nalla finally went down after what felt like hours of restless fussing—she's still adjusting to the new environment, new sounds and smells that aren't quite familiar yet.

But she's safe in her crib now, breathing deep and even, one tiny fist curled against her cheek.

I close my eyes and try to match that peacefulness, to find some of the calm that used to come so easily in this kitchen.

Back when I'd slip down here after everyone was asleep, drawn by the lingering warmth from the day's cooking and the way the space felt like it belonged to no one and everyone all at once.

"Couldn't sleep either?"

The voice makes me jump, nearly knocking over the sugar bowl in my startled motion.

Avenor emerges from the shadows near the servants' stairs, moving with that silent grace that makes him such an effective guard.

His silver hair catches the moonlight as he steps into the kitchen proper, and I notice the way his pointed ears twitch slightly—a tell I remember from before, indicating he's more alert than his casual posture suggests.

"Just getting some tea." I gesture toward the steaming kettle, grateful that my voice comes out steadier than I feel. "Nalla had a hard time settling tonight."

"New place." He moves closer, but not close enough to crowd me, settling against the opposite counter with his arms crossed. "Takes time for little ones to adjust."

There's something different about the way he looks at me now.

Before, his dark blue eyes held casual friendship, the easy camaraderie of someone who'd become genuinely fond of my company.

Now there's something more careful in his expression.

Watchful in a way that has nothing to do with his duties as a guard and everything to do with concern.

"Would you like some tea?" The offer comes out more tentative than I intended, but I need something to fill the silence. Something normal and routine that might bridge whatever gap has opened between us during my absence.

"Sure." He doesn't move from his position against the counter, but his expression softens slightly. "Haven't had proper tea in a while. Cook's been experimenting with some bitter leaf blend that tastes like punishment."

The familiar complaint makes me smile despite everything. Before I left, Avenor and I used to bond over our shared opinion that Cook's adventurous spirit worked much better with food than beverages. Some things, clearly, haven't changed.

I pour two cups, adding honey to both because I remember he has a sweet tooth he pretends doesn't exist. When I hand him the steaming mug, our fingers brush briefly, and I'm struck by how familiar the gesture feels. Like no time has passed at all.

"Not much has changed here," I say, settling against my own section of counter with careful distance between us. "Same routines, same complaints about Cook's experimental teas."

Avenor takes a sip, considering my words with the kind of deliberate attention I remember from our old conversations. He never was one to respond without thinking first, especially when the topic mattered.

"Feels like everything has," he says finally, and there's weight in those simple words. "Place was different after you left. Quieter. Like someone had turned down all the colors."

The observation hits something tender in my chest. I hadn't considered that my disappearance might have affected anyone beyond Rovak, hadn't thought about the smaller relationships I'd left behind.

But Avenor had been my friend, in his own reserved way.

Someone who brought me books he thought I'd enjoy and never asked too many questions about why I sometimes looked sad.

"I'm sorry," I start, but he cuts me off with a shake of his head.

"Not looking for apologies." He sets his mug down, and I catch the way his hands move—controlled, precise, like he's working to keep them steady. "But I need to say something that's been eating at me for two years."

The serious tone in his voice makes my stomach clench with sudden anxiety. Whatever he wants to discuss, the careful way he's approaching it suggests it won't be comfortable. I take a larger sip of tea, using the moment to prepare myself for questions I don't want to answer.

"You probably don't want to talk about it," he continues, and now his navy blue eyes are fixed on mine with uncomfortable intensity. "But I was shocked when you disappeared. More than shocked—I was afraid something had happened to you."

My hands tighten around the warm ceramic of my mug, using the heat to anchor myself against the pull of memory. That night feels like it happened to someone else, like if I don't think about it directly, I can pretend it was just a nightmare that's finally fading.

"If there was something wrong that night," Avenor says, his voice gentler now but no less determined, "I could have helped you. You could have told me. You know that, right?"

The question hangs between us, weighted with two years of wondering and worry. I can see it in his expression—the way he's been turning over that night in his mind, looking for signs he might have missed, ways he could have prevented whatever drove me away.

He found me afterward. That's the piece I've never been able to forget, even when I've tried to bury everything else from that time.

How he discovered me in that storage room, how his usual composed mask slipped when he saw the state I was in.

The way he'd asked what happened, the careful concern in his voice as he offered to help.

And I'd lied to him. Told him I was fine, that nothing was wrong, that he should just forget he'd seen me like that. Made him promise not to tell anyone, not even Rovak, because the shame was already choking me and I couldn't bear the thought of anyone else knowing.

"Avenor—" I start, but the words stick in my throat like they always do when I try to talk about that night. My body remembers the weight of keeping that secret, the way it felt like carrying poison that would contaminate everything it touched.

"I know you don't want to discuss it," he says quickly, like he can read the panic starting to build in my expression.

"I'm not trying to push you for details.

I just..." He runs a hand through his silver hair, disturbing the careful wave at the top.

"I needed you to know that if you'd trusted me with whatever was wrong, I would have helped. No matter what it was."

The sincerity in his voice makes my chest tight with regret.

Because he would have helped, I know that now just as surely as I knew it then.

Avenor might be reserved and sometimes sarcastic, but his loyalty runs bone-deep.

If I'd told him what Xharn had done, he would have found a way to make it right.

But Xharn's words had been so convincing in my shattered state.

The way he'd whispered that no one would believe me over him, that Rovak's honor would demand he cast me out once he knew how I'd been ruined.

The shame had felt like truth, solid and unshakable, and running had seemed like the only option that wouldn't destroy everything.

"I know," I manage finally, the words barely more than a whisper. "I know you would have."

It's not enough—not nearly enough to explain or apologize for the trust I didn't give him when he deserved it. But it's all I can offer without opening wounds that are still too raw to expose.

I start to shift away from the counter, ready to make some excuse about needing to check on Nalla, but Avenor's next words stop me cold.

"Rovak never let you go."

The statement hits me like a physical blow, unexpected and devastating in its quiet certainty. I freeze with my mug halfway to my mouth, staring at him as he continues with careful deliberation.

"He looked for you. For months. Every contact he had, every favor he could call in—he used them all trying to find where you'd gone.

" Avenor's dark blue eyes are steady on mine, making sure I understand the weight of what he's telling me.

"I don't know what you thought when you left, but it wasn't that he didn't care. "

The kitchen suddenly feels too small, the air too thick.

My hands start to shake around the tea mug, and I have to set it down before I drop it.

Because this doesn't fit with what I believed, what Xharn convinced me would happen.

Rovak was supposed to have been relieved to be rid of a sullied servant.

He was supposed to have moved on without a backward glance.

"He never said anything about stopping the search," Avenor continues, his voice getting quieter but more intense.

"Not even after the first year when everyone else was convinced you were gone for good.

Sometimes I'd catch him staring at reports that had nothing to do with business, and I knew he was still hoping one of them would have news of you. "

I can't breathe properly. The careful walls I've built around that part of my heart—the part that never stopped missing him despite everything—are cracking under the pressure of this revelation. Because if Rovak had been looking for me, if he'd never given up, then maybe...

"Why are you telling me this?" The question comes out sharper than I intended, edged with the panic of having my carefully constructed assumptions challenged.

"Because I thought you should know." Avenor straightens, and there's something almost protective in his posture now.

Like he's prepared to defend his decision to share information that clearly distresses me.

"I don't know what happened that made you leave, and I'm not asking you to explain it.

But whatever you believed about how things would be if you stayed—at least part of it was wrong. "

He pushes off from the counter, moving toward the door with the same quiet grace he'd arrived with. But he pauses at the threshold, looking back at me with an expression I can't quite read.

"He's different now that you're back," he says simply. "More like himself than he's been in two years. Make of that what you will."

Then he's gone, leaving me alone in the moonlit kitchen with my cooling tea and the wreckage of everything I thought I knew about my own story.

I stand there for a long time, hands braced against the counter as all the careful reasons I've built for staying away crumble one by one.

If Rovak had been looking for me, if my leaving had hurt him the way losing him had hurt me, then the neat narrative of shame and protection I've been carrying dissolves into something far more complicated.

The tea grows cold as I stare out the window at the familiar gardens, seeing them with new eyes.

This place I ran from to protect everyone involved—maybe the protection had been an illusion from the start.

Maybe the only person I'd been shielding was myself, choosing the certainty of loss over the terrifying possibility of being wanted despite everything.

The thought follows me when I finally make my way back upstairs, settling into the chair beside Nalla's crib like a weight I'll carry through whatever sleepless hours remain until dawn.