Chapter 34
Jane
We returned to the table where the elves were still drinking. Arun was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps I had lost my chance to probe their standing with the Order tonight.
Before Reagan interrupted the dance, I’d been preparing to steer the conversation towards Banfgaard and let Arun speak.
I wanted to hear what problems the elvenborn had, but there hadn’t been enough time, and I’d done a piss-poor job of changing the subject.
He kept circling back to the swim, to the siren.
My skin still prickled with goosebumps long after I’d left the water, yet I made myself appear unfazed as I told him how I’d broken free. I was mildly satisfied by the flicker of admiration in the warrior’s expression.
Reagan might have had his own chance to speak with the elven lords. He hadn’t mentioned it while we danced, and honestly, I’d been caught off guard when he came. It seemed he’d forgotten he was avoiding me, that there was an easy truce between us. Perhaps the siren had shaken him.
I hadn’t cared and hadn’t asked about his conversation, content simply to move with him, to be that close. I wanted to enjoy it, wanted so much I’d kissed his chest.
“You are a gifted dancer,” Anife said, blowing a plume of smoke into the air. “I wonder how useful a skill it is for an emissary?”
“I don’t imagine it is particularly useful,” I replied.
“Isn’t it, though?” she asked lightly, her head tilting.
I shrugged, noticing Reagan taking his seat without sparing me another glance.
He hadn’t explained what he meant after the dance, just walked ahead of me.
I should have thanked him for it. I did feel steadier now, my shoulders looser than they had been all evening as he led us across the grass.
But I didn’t know what that look on his face had meant.
That crease in his brow when the music ended.
On the chair beside mine, Finn exhaled, exchanging a look with Maith. They had returned to the table before us. I could already imagine the fresh round of comments his uncles shot at him.
“She didn’t wish to come,” Eldar was saying as I settled into my chair. “Your mother seems to have given up on you coming back, but I was hoping you might surprise us all.”
Finn nodded, reaching for his glass. His voice was calm, almost bored, as though he had long expected this. “You may send her my greetings.”
“She misses you,” Eldar continued, voice solemn. “And we need you here.”
“We are growing tired of this,” Reagan said, his grimace suggesting mild irritation.
Eldar didn’t look at him. “Maith misses you,” he went on. Maith’s neck strained, but she didn’t speak or even look up. “Do you not, dear?”
There was a restrained quality to her calm, hinting that she had expected this topic. Her eyes darted between Eldar and Finn. “My Lord?”
“Are you still set on abandoning her too?” Eldar went on, his voice too soft.
This wasn’t the direction we needed this dinner to take.
Finn remained cool. “I’m glad we’ve finally reached this part of the evening. Please, carry on. Quickly, so we can all move on.”
Iqbal’s mouth peeled back in a smile, his voice rising so the table couldn’t miss it. “Your mother—”
“My mother,” Finn snapped, cutting him off, “couldn’t be bothered to come, so why should I care?”
“Because she would allow you to do as you’ve always wanted,” Eldar said. Finn’s jaw ticked as the silence stretched. “If you return, if you come back to your court, then you may do as you wish. Wield the mana you inherited from your scum of a father here. And you will be with Maith.”
Finn stared at his uncle. Reluctantly, he met her gaze, his chest lifting slightly in a quiet breath. Maith’s composure was marred by the faintest shadow of sadness or maybe resignation.
Gods. I’d hate to be spoken to like that in front of everyone at the table.
Without another word, Finn drained his glass, rose, and left.
“Atkus, do not leave this table,” Iqbal ordered. Ordered his nephew.
My hands balled beneath the table.
“He will leave,” Reagan said evenly. “Or we’ll all leave.”
Though he seemed poised to shout at Finn, Iqbal conceded, his eyes lingering on Finn with something tangled and unresolved. The same as Eldar’s.
Tension clung to the table. I glanced at Maith, expecting her to follow Finn as she had all night, but she remained seated, watching the lords with a stiff posture.
I felt a sudden need for air. “Excuse me,” I murmured, and followed the path Finn had taken.
He’d already reached the shore, standing rigid at the water’s edge. I stopped beside him.
“They are delightful,” I said flatly.
A tired huff escaped him, half laugh and half sigh.
“Aren’t they?” He shook his head, but there was sadness settling into his face.
“I tried to ask about the spies. It doesn’t matter.
I’m only a prop here. If I stay there, we won’t get what we came for.
” He paused. “You should go back. It will be better if it is you. Especially since Reagan is cross with me.”
“I don’t think we can move on from that so quickly. We have time. And I think this is more important.” His mouth curved faintly at that. “Why would Reagan be cross?”
His mouth tightened. “Because I left you in the water,” Finn said, peering down at me. “And he’s right to be. I’m sorry, Jane. I truly thought the chances of a siren appearing were too low, and we would draw all the spiders to us.”
I waved it away, though I doubted it was convincing. “You couldn’t have known, and I don’t blame you.” I glanced behind us. “Did you hope to see your mother?”
Finn turned back to the water, as though weighing how to answer. “Not really. If you ever meet my mother, you’ll see she is not the sort of woman who cares about her child. She looks at me and remembers the man who abandoned her, so I didn’t expect her to be here.”
“And every time you come here, they speak to you like that?”
“They don’t understand why I left. Elven folk are meant to stay together.
” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “But I grew up in Mountheim. I wanted to remain there even after my father left. Mostly because here, they look down on the mageborn, even a half mage like me.” He tapped the rounded tip of his ear.
“They resented this. And everything I inherited from him. I love my mother, but it was not enough to stay.”
I rested a hand on his arm, hearing the strain in his voice.
“And now they’re trying to lure you back with… Maith?” I asked.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Yes. She was the only good part of living here. But I couldn’t stay only for her. And today we are basically strangers. She’s only a friend, despite what my uncle believes. And I hate that he does that to her.”
My lips pursed.
Banfgaard was where his family lived, but it wasn’t where he belonged.
In Mountheim, I had never seen anyone speak to Finn the way Iqbal had just now.
There was none of that emotional coercion.
It didn’t seem like he missed this place.
He carved the path he wanted, fully aware that his family would never forgive him.
It was brave, though I imagined it carried its fair share of guilt.
“It’s your life,” I murmured. “You should get to choose how you spend it.”
The moment the words left my mouth, they sank into me. So simple, so obvious. Yet I hadn’t seen it that way before, not when my own tangled mess was involved. And that was the problem.
But Finn? I couldn’t imagine him not living in the Hall, not being anything but himself. The charming one, the emissary who was clever enough to decipher how Madden meddled with the curse. The friend who had seen my situation and was kind to a stranger when he didn’t need to be.
He sighed. “Yeah. I suppose that’s true.”
A thought struck me. “How does Gwinifer handle your uncles?”
Finn cracked a laugh. “She hates them. On one of the trips here, she jumped on Anife, and Reagan had to hold her back.”
I found myself chuckling, satisfied to see him relax a bit.
“It’s why Gwin had to stop coming,” he went on. “She would have made them pay for that swim.”
We walked back as Finn recounted their previous visits to Banfgaard. He was in the midst of telling me how his father had left the country when we spotted Maith by a tree. Her gaze was fixed on him as though she had been waiting.
“Do you want to dance?” I offered.
His attention was already on her. “Perhaps another time.”
“Deal.” I nudged his shoulder with my own. “Do you think your uncles will take it badly if I say that the food would be more appetising if they put on a shirt?”
That earned me another laugh.