Chapter 3 #2
“Oooh, are we talking about Dren?” Kianthe flicked her finger, sending the tiny dust cyclone into the corners under every booth. She’d meandered back into the shop proper, nodding appreciation to Gossley as he began tidying the tabletops.
Feo wasn’t even sure he worked here anymore—last they heard, Gossley was talking about apprenticing for Tarly full-time—but old habits clearly died hard.
“Yes,” Reyna said cautiously. She put more weight in that word, catching her wife’s gaze—and what ensued was a very obvious, unspoken conversation.
Kianthe glanced at Feo, then at Reyna, then at Feo again, raising her eyebrows.
Reyna subtly shook her head, drumming her fingers on the couch’s armrest.
The silence was suffocating.
“What?” Feo demanded.
“You came to the party,” Kianthe blurted.
Reyna pinched her the bridge of her nose.
Feo couldn’t help stiffening. “Of course I did. You invited me, and it’s important to meet new figureheads in the area.
” They had recited that excuse dozens of times over the last few days.
First, when they were justifying why they were getting dressed and flying into Tawney, and then afterwards, when they miserably replayed their conversation with Wylan on the flight home.
Kianthe must have known it, too. She let the cyclone continue to clean, draping herself over the back of the couch. “Meeting figureheads. Sure. Wylan thinks you were jealous.”
Reyna shot Kianthe a dark glance, seemingly seconds from an audible groan. It would have been funny, except that Feo was too busy seething.
Wylan thought that?
Well. Feo would show him.
“I was not jealous,” Feo lied. It was all so embarrassing. They shouldn’t have come here today—but after two days of pretending the world hadn’t massively shifted, they needed to talk to someone who might be able to steady it.
Next time, they’d just ask for Reyna specifically.
When no one intervened, they continued ranting: “Jealousy is for people who feel they’re owed something, then denied it. Wylan and I have no debts to each other. We haven’t been anything for years.”
They were aware, distantly, of how this sounded.
They couldn’t stop.
“We’re not anything, so no. I’m not jealous.”
“The repetition is absolutely selling it,” Kianthe drawled.
She seemed to realize Feo was seconds from strangling her, though, because she pushed off the couch and shooed the dust-filled tornado out the front door.
Gossley had vanished into the back room with some dirty mugs, which meant Feo and Reyna were effectively alone.
Their expression must have been miserable, because Reyna was wearing that kind and gentle ruler look she got with pissy subjects sometimes.
“May I offer some advice, Alchemicor?”
Feo hated the title coming from her lips. “Go on. Tell me how ridiculous I am.”
“You’re not ridiculous.” She chuckled. “But just because your brain knows something with certainty… doesn’t mean your heart has caught up.”
Feo swallowed past the lump in their throat, covering the sudden surge of emotion with another forcedly-casual sip of tea.
Outside, Kianthe was calling to Quinn—and considering how loudly she was shouting, there was a very real chance Quinn had convinced Kappenicus to take flight after all.
In the back room, the sound of dishes clinking in a metal sink could be heard.
What remained was a quiet, cozy barn, the flickering of a warm hearth, and a friendly ear.
Feo took another bite of their scone, sitting with the emotion snarling their chest. It felt messy. It felt unjust. It felt dangerous.
They whispered, “I think I’m in trouble, Reyna.”
“Nothing has happened that can’t be undone,” Reyna replied neutrally.
Feo groaned, massaging their forehead. “I’m not so certain. At the party, Wylan told me I was out of line.”
“Were you?”
Yes.
Absolutely, they were.
But they couldn’t admit it. Instead, they replied tightly, “It’s irrelevant. The fact is, I shouldn’t care about this new lord, or the relationship he has with Wylan.”
“But you do. Because Wylan was someone very special to you for a long time.” There was no judgment in her words.
She was merely speaking truth—and Feo couldn’t argue it.
Reyna leaned back on the couch, contemplating her next words.
“It isn’t a failure to feel. It isn’t unnatural to miss your old partner, and what you had together. ”
Platitudes. Feo scoffed. “I didn’t miss him before this week. Riddle me that.”
They almost didn’t want her to—because it was painfully obvious why, even to them. They almost opened their mouth to cut her off, just so they didn’t have to hear the confirmation.
But Reyna said it anyway. “That’s because, before this week, you were content in the knowledge that Wylan wasn’t interested in anyone else. Before this week, there was a chance.”
Yep. There it was.
Feo hated that truth. “There was no chance. Wylan made that obvious four years ago. He couldn’t handle my new station and title.”
“He handled your title as diarn just fine. He was elated when you became a councilmember, if I remember correctly.”
She might as well have stabbed them in the chest. Feo scrambled to prove she was wrong. “Well, that’s because he’s on par with a diarn, and not far below a councilmember. But he can’t equal my standing as Alchemicor, so—”
“I’m heading home, Reyna,” Gossley called. Feo physically recoiled, unsure of when he’d resurfaced from the back room, suddenly embarrassed the shophand might have overheard.
“Thank you for your help, Gossley! Say hi to Laura for me,” Reyna said lightly, as if they weren’t in the middle of an intense conversation.
Feo waved halfheartedly, unwilling to meet Gossley’s gaze. But the boy just left out the back door, exiting onto their patio. A shortcut to home, no doubt. Feo checked, but Kianthe had clearly followed Quinn… somewhere… because there was no sign of her through the windows.
Outside, the grey sky was darkening.
Reyna broke the hushed quiet.
“Wylan was destined for lordship the moment he was born—and despite that, he would gladly hand the title to another if he thought it would benefit Tawney. Once he realized you cared just as much for this town, he had no problem letting a false diarn help in governing.” She held Feo’s gaze, and her voice was firm now.
“In my experience, the only people who care about a title are those terrified to lose the respect that comes with it.”
Feo knew exactly who Reyna was thinking of with that statement: Queen Tilaine, with her childish behavior and her ruthless cruelty and her rage against the world for denying her everything she “deserved.”
Feo wasn’t like Tilaine. They knew they weren’t. But the implication that they might be adjacent had Feo twisting in disgust. “Not everyone handles a power imbalance like you and Kianthe. Not everyone can date the Arcandor, then become queen and even the playing field.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
An edge of steel slid into Reyna’s voice. “Feo. Even before I was crowned, Kianthe never once made me feel inferior.”