Chapter 13 Marienne #2
“That one was judgmental,” I say lightly, hoping to ease the wrinkle in her brow.
Tamsin glances at me. “It was a string.”
“All the more reason to treat it with kindness,” I reply, touching a fingertip to the harp’s carved edge. “They remember.”
“You talk about this thing like it’s alive.”
“It is,” I whisper, conspiratorially. “She holds grudges.”
Tamsin huffs. “Of course she does. She belongs in this house.”
I grin and press the side of my hand gently to the base of the harp. “Don’t listen to her, darling. She didn’t mean it.”
“Are you apologizing on my behalf to a piece of furniture?”
“Harp,” I correct, eyes sparkling. “She has far more emotional depth than furniture.”
She gives me a look. Disbelieving. Flat. But not cold. Never truly cold, not anymore.
A beat passes.
“You’re not right,” Tamsin says quietly.
I beam. “Not even a little.”
She exhales through her nose. Her hands return to the strings. She doesn’t ask for more instruction, but I notice the way her fingers shift toward the note I’d played earlier.
She’s learning. Secretly, stubbornly. Like everything else she does.
I lean closer, just enough for our shoulders to brush again, a point of contact that feels more intimate than it should. My voice softens. “Do you like it?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Just plays another string. The note hums between us, warm and low.
“It’s… less unpleasant than I expected,” she says finally.
“Oh my. Was that almost praise?”
She glances sideways. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.”
Another moment stretches out, unhurried and quiet. She doesn’t move away. Her posture remains taut, but her eyes are softer now. I watch the shift in her jaw when she’s trying not to smile. The small crease between her brows when she’s thinking too hard, trying not to feel too much.
What are you thinking, Ser Tamsin?
I want to know. I want to ask.
But I don’t.
Instead, I reach across her—slow, deliberate, giving her every chance to retreat—and guide her fingers to a different string. My skin brushes hers. She doesn’t flinch.
“Try this one,” I say, voice barely above a whisper. “It’s one of my favorites.”
Her fingers press down. The sound blooms soft and rich, like sunlight through silk.
She exhales.
I don’t speak. Neither does she.
But something moves between us again. Not tension, not quite attraction, but something in the family of both. A new thread pulled tight and trembling.
If she feels it too, she doesn’t say.
She simply keeps playing. And I let her…
Until Margot’s shout down the hall—“Yla has tied Callen to a chair again!”—breaks the spell.
Tamsin sighs, already rising.
I remain seated, watching her shoulders as she goes.
“Tomorrow?” I call after her.
“Yes, tomorrow,” she mutters, disappearing through the door.
And though I should follow—
I linger.
Smiling.
***
The manor is quiet in that way it only is when the children are finally asleep—too quiet, like the house is holding its breath in disbelief.
I sit curled sideways in one of the drawing room chairs, a thin shawl over my shoulders and a half-drunk cup of chamomile cooling in my hands. Margot sits across from me, mending Siven’s shirt, her tea untouched. She hasn’t said anything yet.
She never rushes to speak, Margot. Words are currency with her—rare, carefully spent, and full of weight.
“So,” she says at last, not looking up from her stitching, “how’d your little trade go, songbird?”
I smile before I can help it. “I taught her to coax notes from a harp, and she taught me to bruise my wrist on a wooden sword.”
Margot snorts. “Sounds like you enjoyed it then.”
“It was mutual suffering.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“I did enjoy it,” I admit, shrugging softly under the shawl. “She’s surprisingly patient for someone who looks like she could glare a river into freezing.”
Margot is quiet a moment, before saying, “She’s watching you.”
I blink. “I should hope so. I’m very watchable.”
Margot’s eyes lift, and something sharper glints in them. “Not like that. She watches you like she’s waiting for you to drop something. Or run.”
I feel it in my chest then—the tight little curl of defensiveness. I smooth it down with a smile that feels thinner than usual.
“She’s been kind,” I say.
“She’s been dutiful,” Margot replies. “Which isn’t the same thing.”
I glance down into my tea. “You don’t like her.”
“I don’t trust her.”
“That’s not the same thing either.”
She sets her mending aside, finally looking at me fully. “You’ve got six little ones who sleep better when you sing. Who flinch less when you hold them now. You don’t need someone walking in and shifting the ground under your feet.”
I nod. I know what she means. I even appreciate it. But something about it still stings.
“I’m not a child anymore, Margot,” I reassure her.
“No,” she says gently. “But you love like one. All heart, no armor. That’s what makes you good with them. But it’s what makes me worry too.”
The silence stretches. I sip my tea, just to fill it.
Margot sighs, and picks her mending back up.
“I’m not saying I don't like her,” she mutters. “Just don’t bleed for someone who hasn’t even offered a clean cloth.”
My throat tightens. I smile, for her sake.
“You always were a poet.”
“Only when I’m tired,” she says.
We sit in silence for a while longer, the fire popping quietly beside us.
Outside, the manor creaks and settles. The children dream, hopefully pleasant ones. And upstairs, a knight I can’t stop thinking about is probably writing her fifth version of a report on me.
I glance into the fire.
I won’t bleed, I tell myself.
But I already feel something shifting. Blooming.
And I don’t know yet if it’s foolishness or hope.