He clearly wanted to argue the point, but then glanced at the balcony again—or rather, I suppose, at the position of the sun—and sighed. “Fine.”
“Are you going to tell Aaron?”
“What? Saints, no!” He seemed startled by the suggestion. “I love Aaron like a brother, but he could no more keep a secret than he could fly. And the fewer people who know about this, the better. Now I really must go. I’ll come back as soon as I’m off shift—no, damn it, that’s at midnight. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
He gave me a very slight bow, and went off to report for whatever it was that bodyguards did when they didn’t have a body to guard. And I stared at the pastille in my hand and thought about Snow watching me and shivered.
CHAPTER 17
In the end, I didn’t go back into the mirror after all. Instead I draped a sheet over it and a towel over the one in the washroom. When the maid brought me a dinner tray, both she and her hair took a long look at the covering, then carefully ignored it.
I went to bed early, but even though I was exhausted, sleep eluded me. I kept opening my eyes, looking to see if the sheet had been moved aside. It hadn’t, but that didn’t stop me from checking.
When I wasn’t worrying about being watched, I was brooding on the look that Javier had given me. There was no question that I’d mistaken it. His lip had actually curled back in disgust, and for a man who doled out his expressions the way a miser doled out coins, that said a lot.
It must have been the bit where he half carried me around while I was sweaty and limp and retching. This struck me as unfair.I was hardly at my best, but it’s not like I make ahabitof poisoning myself.
Well…
Okay, Idopoison myself, but not all that often. Once or twice a year. Once a season at most. And he’s never had to deal with it before. He’s only seen me limp and retching the one time.(Sweaty, fine. We were in a desert, after all. But it’s not like I don’t wash regularly.)
Anyway, when he gave me that look, I was standing upright and hadn’t vomited once. So there.
I rolled over, hugging a pillow against my chest. Fine. Maybe it was me. Or maybe he just didn’t like women. I hadn’t gotten that impression, but some people are subtle. (I hadn’t realized that about Scand until after I’d fallen wildly and inappropriately inlove with him at age fifteen. He immediately went to my father in stark terror, and then Father had explained to me about the birds and the bees and, more specifically, the bees who preferred the company of other bees. I was horribly embarrassed and hid in my room for a week, until a new shipment of books arrived and I got over it.)
Even if Javier preferred men, though, I’d just squeezed his hand to let him know it had come through. You’d have toworkto read desire into that.
I was just about to start another round of pointless brooding when something landed on the bed with a soft thump.
I shot upright, ready to run. A quick glance at the mirror showed that the sheet was still over it, but they might have snuck through and put it back, and what if—
“Jumpy, aren’t we?” said the cat.
My breath went out in a whoosh. “Oh. It’s you.”
“No need to sound quite so thrilled.”
“Do you need something?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Your bed,” Grayling said, with a pointed glance at the pillows, “is warm.”
“… ah.”
He waited until I’d lain back down, then strolled up the length of the bed, examined my sleeping position, then pushed at my arm repeatedly with one paw until I’d moved it to his liking.
“You could justtellme what you want moved,” I grumbled. His claws weren’t all the way in, and the pinpricks itched.
“Too much talk before bed gives you ear mites,” he informed me, and curled up in a ball practically in my armpit.
“Do humans even get ear mites?”
“Keep talking and you’ll find out.”
He was small and soft and very warm. I lay there, slightly uncomfortable, my neck crooked and my arm itching from his claws, and felt, despite everything, grudgingly privileged.
