Ridiculous, insignificant.
I stared at the crumbs of bread and swirls of remaining sauce on my golden plate. Had I been at home, I would have licked my plate clean, desperate for any extra bit of nourishment. And the plates … I could have bought a team of horses, a plow, and a field for just one of them. Disgusting.
Lucien cleared his throat. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Nineteen.” Pleasant, civilized …
Lucien tsked. “So young, and so grave. And a skilled killer already.”
I tightened my hands into fists, the metal of the knife now warm against my skin. Docile, unthreatening, tame … I’d made my mother a promise, and I’d keep it. Tamlin’s looking after my family wasn’t the same as my looking after them. That wild, small dream could still come to pass: my sisters comfortably married off, and a lifetime with my father, with enough food for us both and enough time to maybe paint a little—or to maybe learn what I wanted. It could still happen—in a faraway land, perhaps—if I ever got out of this bargain. I could still cling to that scrap of a dream, though these High Fae would likely laugh at how typically human it was to think so small, to want so little.
Yet any bit of information might help, and if I showed interest in them, perhaps they would warm to me. What was this but another trap in the woods? So I said, “So is this what you do with your lives? Spare humans from the Treaty and have fine meals?” I gave a pointed glance toward Tamlin’s baldric, the warrior’s clothes, Lucien’s sword.
Lucien smirked. “We also dance with the spirits under the full moon and snatch human babes from their cradles to replace them with changelings—”
“Didn’t …,” Tamlin interrupted, his deep voice surprisingly gentle, “didn’t your mother tell you anything about us?”
I prodded the table with my forefinger, digging my short nails into the wood. “My mother didn’t have the time to tell me stories.” I could reveal that part of my past, at least.
Lucien, for once, didn’t laugh. After a rather stilted pause, Tamlin asked, “How did she die?” When I lifted my brows, he added a bit more softly, “I didn’t see signs of an older woman in your house.”
Predator or not, I didn’t need his pity. But I said, “Typhus. When I was eight.” I rose from my seat to leave.
“Feyre,” Tamlin said, and I half turned. A muscle feathered in his cheek.
Lucien glanced between us, that metal eye roving, but kept silent. Then Tamlin shook his head, the movement more animal than anything, and murmured, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I tried to keep from grimacing as I turned on my heel and left. I didn’t want or need his condolences—not for my mother, not when I hadn’t missed her in years. Let Tamlin dismiss me as a rude, uncouth human not worth his careful watch.
I’d be better off persuading Lucien to speak to Tamlin on my behalf—and soon, before any of the others whom they’d mentioned appeared, or this blight of theirs grew. Tomorrow—I’d speak to Lucien then, test him out a bit.
In my room, I found a small satchel in the armoire and filled it with a spare set of clothes, along with my stolen knife. It was a pitiful blade, but a piece of cutlery was better than nothing. Just in case I was ever allowed to go—and had to leave at a moment’s notice.
Just in case.
Chapter 9
The following morning, as Alis and the other servant woman prepared my bath, I contemplated my plan. Tamlin had mentioned that he and Lucien had various duties, and aside from running into him in the house yesterday, I’d seen neither of them around. So, locating Lucien—alone—would be the first order of business.
A casual question tossed in Alis’s direction had her revealing that she believed Lucien was on border patrol today—and would be at the stables, preparing to leave.
I was halfway through the gardens, hurrying toward the outcropping of buildings I’d spied the day before, when Tamlin said from behind me, “No trip wires today?”
I froze midstep and looked over my shoulder. He was standing a few feet away.
How had he crept up so silently on the gravel? Faerie stealth, no doubt. I willed calm into my veins, my head. I said as politely as I could, “You said I was safe here. So I listened.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, but he put on what I supposed was his attempt at a pleasant smile. “My morning work was postponed,” he said. Indeed, his usual tunic was off, the baldric gone, and the sleeves of his white shirt had been rolled up to the elbows to reveal tanned forearms corded with muscle. “If you want a ride across the grounds—if you’re interested in your new … residence, I can take you.”
Again, that effort to be accommodating, even when every word seemed to pain him. Maybe he could eventually be swayed by Lucien. And until then … how much could I get away with, if he was going to such lengths to make his people swear not to harm me, to shield me from the Treaty? I smiled blandly and said, “I’d prefer to spend today alone, I think. But thank you for the offer.”