Chapter 28 Tamsin
Tamsin
The manor smells like damp wood and warm sugar. A good smell. Honest.
I track wet footprints through the entry, my boots trailing beside Marienne’s finer ones. She’s humming.
Gods, she’s humming.
It’s not the careful tune she puts on when she’s pretending to be unbothered.
It’s not armor. This one is off-key in places, lilting and full of air.
Real. Her cheeks are still pink from the rain, wavy hair frizzed at the edges, and her dress is slightly muddied at the hem.
But she doesn’t care. Not about any of it.
The sight shouldn’t knock the breath from my chest.
But it does.
When we step further inside, Margot meets us. Marienne offers the housekeeper a paper-wrapped parcel with a triumphant, “I found your favorite!” The woman grumbles, rolls her eyes, but she takes it with both hands. Her mouth twitches.
That’s the closest I’ve seen her come to smiling since I arrived.
And the children—gods above, the children swarm.
Marienne barely sets her satchel down before they descend like bees to a flowerbed. She flaps her hands, scolds half-heartedly, and spoils them anyway.
I lean against the wall, arms crossed, watching as she unwraps the paper bundle—more candied clusters, lavender coins, marzipan shaped like tiny moons. She lets them choose, no hesitation. Like trust is something she gives freely.
“One each!” she says, then adds with a wink, “Two if you help clean the floors tomorrow!”
Their laughter bursts through the hall, loud and sticky-sweet. It echoes down the stone like something living.
I should be annoyed at the lack of structure.
Instead, I’m struck by the way she kneels down, still rain-damp, offering each child their treat like it’s a crown. How they look at her. Like they know she won’t leave. Like they’re starting to believe home isn’t a lie.
And it makes something in my chest ache in that old, broken place that forgot what softness tasted like.
She catches me watching. Doesn’t comment. Just smiles.
A small, secret thing.
And I know: something shifted between us today.
She felt it too.
***
The sun sinks low, brushing the manor in soft gold before the shadows take over. We eat.
Or rather… I eat. The others indulge.
My plate is simple: crusty bread, a slab of goat cheese, apple slices going soft at the edges. I tear the bread in half and Liri steals the smaller piece off my plate without asking. I let her. She dips it into her cup like it’s soup.
The cup, of course, holds blood.
They’d missed their midday feeding while Marienne was gone—refused it, really. Margot had tried, but they’d insisted on waiting. Said it wouldn’t taste right without her there.
The blood is bottled in green glass, stoppered with wax and tied with twine. Marienne uncorks it with practiced fingers and pours seconds carefully. The scent perfumes the air: sweet and metallic, laced with something warmer.
“Don’t rush it,” she warns as she fills Imara’s cup. “You’ll give yourself another stomachache.”
“I didn’t last time,” Imara mutters, but takes the cup with both hands.
Marienne arches a brow. “No? Then who was moaning in the linen closet for twenty minutes?”
“That was Yla!”
Yla protests from across the table, indignant and already halfway through her first cup. Though she grins, lips stained dark, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.
“It was both of you,” Marienne says, unbothered. “Synchronized suffering.”
They laugh, loose-limbed now. The way they always are after feeding. The tightness eases from their shoulders. Their skin takes on a healthier flush, fangs peeking just a little more freely—no longer hidden.
Even Siven, who’s normally silent during meals, leans back into the seat beside me and exhales softly, like she can finally breathe right.
It used to unsettle me.
The way they sipped blood like cocoa.
The way Marienne poured it like tea.
How she smiled through it all.
How normal she made it look…
Now?
It feels… natural. Like this is what safety looks like, here. Like this is what it means to be fed and seen.
“More for Callen?” Marienne asks, already tipping the bottle.
Callen nods, wide-eyed and solemn, holding out her cup like a priestess waiting on ritual.
When it’s empty, she curls up in Marienne’s lap without asking.
Marienne just strokes her hair back gently and murmurs, “You’ve got blood on your chin, darling.”
Callen wipes it away carefully.
Across the table, Marienne catches me watching. She doesn’t say anything. Just gives me that small, quiet smile again.
The one that feels like it was meant only for me.
Then the knock comes.
Soft. Measured. Too polite to mean anything good.
Marienne sets Callen down with a murmur, smoothing the little one’s curls before rising. Margot’s already retired for the night, so it’s her hand that reaches for the latch.
I trail behind her, alert again.
The courier bows, hand extended. A crisp envelope. Dark wax seal. The sigil unmistakable.
The seal of the Eldermire Court.
Marienne takes it, hands steady, voice bright.
“Do come in for tea, if you’d like!”
The courier declines. He’s gone before she finishes the sentence.
She closes the door, and doesn’t open the envelope yet. Just stares at it.
She’s still flushed from earlier and the blood. Still soft around the eyes.
Irrationally, I want her to throw the damn thing in the fire.
She doesn’t.
Instead, she breaks the seal and reads.
Her face changes. The warmth drains in slow, quiet degrees. Not all at once, not the way the children fall asleep, but like a hearth gone cold because someone forgot to tend it.
By the time she looks up, the smile is back.
Perfect. Polished. Poisoned.
“We’ve officially been invited,” she says. Her voice lilts, cheerful and gloved. “The Moonshadow Ball. How delightful.”
“And?” I ask. I keep my voice low.
“And nothing,” she says. Still smiling. “We’ll wear something charming, dazzle them with etiquette, and prove that lace and laughter aren’t threats to the realm.”
It’s a performance, and I hate it.
Because I just saw her. The real her. For once.
And now she’s hiding again.
I watch the way her shoulders lift and lock. The way her jaw sets, like she’s bracing for a blow she doesn’t want me to see.
She doesn’t crumple the letter. She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t ask for help.
She just folds it with precise fingers and sets it gently on a nearby table, as if it’s just another note from a forgettable cousin.
My jaw ticks. I’m standing too close to the door, too still.
“Marienne.”
She looks at me, and simply smiles wider.
“Everything’s wonderful.”
That word. Wonderful. It lands like a ribbon-wrapped dagger. It means don’t worry. It means don’t ask. It means you can’t help me.
I’ve heard it before. From diplomats. From nobles. Even from the dying.
I hate it on her tongue.
She smooths her skirt with a sweep too graceful to be anything but rehearsed.
“They didn’t include Margot in the invitation,” she says, almost absently, as though it’s a mistake that can be easily corrected. “That simply won’t do. She’s indispensable to the children’s well-being. We’ll need her there.”
I know what she’s doing. Spinning panic into posture. Turning fear into something that can be folded, pressed, sent in an envelope.
“I’ll write to them,” she continues. “I’ll insist. It must be an oversight.”
She doesn’t wait for agreement. Doesn’t look back. Just turns and slips from the room like she hasn’t just been handed a sentence dressed as ceremony.
She’s going to find Margot. Going to plan. To prepare.
As if preparation has ever stopped the blade from falling.
And I—
Gods, I don’t follow.
I let her go.
Because I know she needs a moment to keep from breaking.
And because I’m trying not to break too.