ChapterThirty-Three
I shouldn’t care!
Everything in me knows that, yet I still care that he called me Lyra.
I step into Jasce’s bedchamber and change into a plain nightdress. It hangs loosely on my body as I sit on the edge of the mattress and stare wordlessly at the wall.
Even if I was myself right now, I couldn’t pursue him. After all, he’s married to Lyra, and he’s from House of Crimson. Our houses don’t mingle. It’s forbidden.
Over the summers, I have heard a few stories of people from House of Crimson and House of Silver marrying, but it has never ended well. Someone always ends up dead.
I raise my fingers to my flushed skin, wondering when this will all end. Some magical effects have an expiration. Don’t they? Maybe soul linking does too.
Maybe I should try harder to find Mazaline.
The door swings open, and Jasce steps into the bedchamber. His eyes instantly lock on me, and I draw in a quick breath at the desire burning there.
“Why did you leave?” he asks.
I look down at my feet. “You called me Lyra.”
“I couldn’t call you Annora in front of everyone.”
“But you were teasingme. Not her.”
“I know. It is your innocence that provokes me. I’m consumed by the thought of making you moan.” He moves closer.
I shake my head. “I don’t…We can’t…”
The mattress creaks as he sits next to me and lifts my chin to meet his gaze. “You want this. I feel it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I bite the inside of my lip, yearning for things to be different between us, yearning for him to not be from House of Crimson.
“It does.”
“No.” I break away from him and move to the opposite side of the bed. “I’m nother.”
Something sparks behind his eyes as he studies me. “I know.”
“You don’t know. If you did, you would understand what it is like to be trapped in a world where you don’t belong. I’m simply a reflection etched in fragile glass. You shouldn’t bed me. You shouldn’t even want to bed me.”
When he doesn’t speak, I shake my head and continue. “Don’t you want to know what happened to your wife?”
“Of course. I looked for answers the moment I discovered your secret.”
My heart quickens as I stand and move to the armoire. I ruffle inside, finding the note I stashed beneath my nightdresses, and carry it to Jasce.
“Lyra’s mother gave me a bag. This was inside it.”
He opens the parchment and reads, his expression stoic as I shift my weight from foot to foot. After a moment, he folds it and sets it on the table.
“I didn’t know about this,” he says, his voice tight.
“She was obviously blackmailing someone.”
He nods.
“Do you have any idea?”
