Chapter Twenty-Nine #3
Adeline could taste their perfume, and now she understood why.
She dragged her gaze from the flowers that had burst from her fingertips; Imogen stared wordlessly back at her.
It was only when the door clicked shut that Adeline realised she’d been tuning out the drone of Avette and Doran’s voices.
She jolted at the silence and spun to the mirror.
“Do you intend to preen all day, cousin?” Avette demanded as she crossed the room. Her patience was apparently worn far more by a swift conversation with Doran than any amount of accusations Adeline could throw at her. “Or shall we let your poor sister try her dress?”
Adeline stared back at Avette’s reflection, frozen with indecision. The nycta fluttered vividly in her peripheral vision, just below the frame of the mirror. If Avette came any closer, she would see. If Adeline moved, she would see.
“Well?”
“Of course,” Imogen said smoothly. “She’ll just need to undress.”
She stepped closer and, in one fluid motion, swept her skirts over the fluttering nycta.
“Here,” she said brightly. “I’ll help you.”
???
When the knock came later that night, Ger was dozing in a chair by the fire and just about leapt out of his skin.
“Shit,” he hissed, scrambling to his feet. He promptly unlaced his shirt and ruffled his hair, then shot Adeline a questioning look. She nodded and shooed urgently at him until he stormed for the door, wrenching it open with an irritable growl.
“What have I told you about interrupting—”
He faltered, words choking off.
Adeline bolted to her feet, racing for him before the dread even had time to pool in her stomach.
“Ger?”
He let his grip on the door slacken as she approached, and Adeline wrenched it open. Imogen squinted back at them both, nose wrinkled.
“Are you two pretending to shag?”
“Imogen,” Adeline sighed, relief gusting from her tight chest, but only in the brief moment before Ger answered.
“We’re doing what we must.”
There was something about the way he said it that turned Adeline’s attention.
His bright face was cool, the words about as sour as Ger could get.
Pointed and unlike himself, as though he was quoting something he’d heard.
Imogen’s gaze bounced guiltily away, down the hall and back, her lips pursed against a sigh when she met Ger’s eye again.
“That’s fair,” she said evenly.
“Am I missing something?”
“Rather a lot,” said Ger, still locked on Imogen. “And thank the Goddess for that.”
Imogen did not quite wince, but the flicker of her lashes was enough to underline her discomfort.
“Look, I understand why you might be a little wary—”
“Just a touch,” Ger said dryly.
“—but I’m here in good faith. I have to speak with Adeline alone.”
As though her very blood understood, Adeline’s veins gave a hollow pulse, the absence of magic serving to remind her of how it had been forced through her body mere hours ago. The violence of it, the overwhelm, Imogen’s eyes on hers and a flutter of pink nycta swept beneath glittering skirts.
“Good luck with that,” said Ger. “There are no secrets between us.”
But there were. For the first time in their messy, precious history, Adeline did have a secret she was not ready to share with him. She laid a hand on his arm, coaxing him back.
“It’s alright,” she told him.
He finally broke his death stare to send her a side-long glance, and with every moment he held her in that incredulous, crestfallen gaze, Adeline’s heart sank further and further into her gut.
It was like standing in the cold outside your own home, only to find the front door locked.
The beaming warmth of his eyes was dimmed, as though someone had damped the yellow glow of a candle in a window, torn the curtains back to reveal a desolate room within.
There was disappointment there, as much as disbelief.
“I hope you know who you’re putting your trust in, Ade,” was all he said.
Ger turned and stalked away, striding right past the sparse warmth of the fire and the settee with its pile of blankets to disappear into Adeline’s cold bedroom. He would catch his death in there; they’d have to make this quick.
And yet, when she turned to face Imogen, she knew at once that it wouldn’t be.
Imogen reached between the shimmering folds of her skirt and into a hidden pocket. She withdrew her fist and held it out, fingers uncurling to reveal a handful of fragrant pink flowers.
“When did you find out?”
“I don’t know what you mean—”
Imogen stuffed the petals back into her pocket with a sigh. “I should probably spare you the breath, Ade. I know. Your father told me.”
Adeline froze, stiffening against the wave of sickly anger that tugged at her belly. She didn’t want to be angry with him—if she let that anger in, she’d have to feel other things too. Things that might cloud her judgment.
Even so, she couldn’t suppress the fleeting thought: Who didn’t he tell?
Something of that struggle must have played over her face, because Imogen’s softened.
“He was trying to keep you out of harm’s way. He just wanted you to be safe.”
Adeline swallowed the lump in her throat. “And what do you want, Imogen?”
For a long moment, Imogen seemed stuck for words.
Finally, she seemed to decide there were no words to explain why she was here.
Instead, she reached into the neckline of her dress; it was a higher collar than she generally wore or even designed, made of delicate lace similar to the styles that Avette seemed to favour.
But when Imogen withdrew a long, age-dulled chain, Adeline wondered if the dress served a purpose beyond flattering their new queen.
Because there, gleaming where it hung from Imogen’s hand, was Kai’s Adhlian pendant. Adeline stared wordlessly from the green glow to the clever glint it cast against her friend’s dark eyes.
“What I want,” said Imogen, “is to help.”