Three more days limped past, during which Miss Quist announced that she and Lunk were engaged. She’d begged the seneschal for amnesty on the giant’s behalf, and, to my surprise, had it granted. In answer, Lunk had found the courage to put a ring on her finger, complete with a tiny seed pearl I’d helped him choose in town.
At that, the household revived a bit. People laughed again. There was talk of how, come equinox, we’d have a second wedding, after all.
Meanwhile, I waited, and prepared. But each day felt emptier than the last, and I swore the hours stretched like putty.
Which was stupid, but I couldn’t seem to stop missing my husband. At night, I wondered where Kai was sleeping, whether he’d had enough to eat today. Whether he was warm enough tonight.
Whether he’d ravished anyone else on a bathroom counter yet.
If he had, I couldn’t seem to manage the same. Once, Merron came to my room, but I could tell he understood there was no real hope, because when I rebuffed him, he actually chuckled.
“What?” I said. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. I’m actually kind of relieved, to be honest.”
“Relieved? Why?”
“Because. This proves you have a heart.” Merron’s smile grew rueful. “I don’t like knowing it’s broken, but Idolike knowing it exists.”
I rolled my eyes and shooed him out, then lingered by the door, pretending his fading steps belonged to someone else—that Kai had just laughed and given me one of his obnoxious half-smiles and gone off to chop wood or rebuild a pig trough orweed the gardens or whatever the hell else he felt compelled to exhaust himself with today.
I stood there for far too long, pretending he would be back. That any minute, I’d see him again.
Even though I knew I never would.
Amryssa only tolerated my moping for so long. Three and a half weeks after Kai’s departure, she turned to me in the hallway, took me by the shoulders, and shook me.
I stood there and let her, too shocked to resist. “What’re you doing?”
“Snapping you out of it,” she said. “That’s what people are always doing in books, aren’t they? Did it work?”
I brushed my hands down my front, then glanced at my upturned palms. “I don’t think so. I don’t feel any different.”
She blew out a breath. “Well, we need to dosomething. Because watching you scowl all day is making me itchy.”
I considered. “Have you considered that you might be allergic to something?”
She crossed her arms. “Harlowe. I hate seeing you sad, but I can’t bring Kai back to you. So you’re going to have to let me... I don’t know. Take you into town, maybe. Why don’t we go drinking? Or do some dancing? What was it that made you happy before Kai came?”
A beat of silence spun by. WhathadI spent all my time on, before? “I don’t know. I was always so focused on taking care of you.”
Her smile looked almost apologetic. “Then you ought to let me take care of you, for once. Starting with a night in town.”
A scorching weight settled in my chest. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I do, though. You’re my friend. My sister, for all intents and purposes.”
She said it just like that, as if it were the plainest truth in the world, and my throat thickened. I didn’t have the heart to tell her a night in town would only remind me of Kaimore.
I really had to get my mind off him, in any way I could, and I couldn’t possibly refuse Amryssa when she called us kin. “Okay.”
“Really?” she said, her eyes bright. “Tonight?”
I hesitated. “Will Olivian even let us?”
“Let’s go ask.”
We did. The seneschal paused perusing some documents and leveled a look at us over his desk. “You want to go to town? Tonight?”
