He nodded, businesslike. “While we wait for the annulment, I want you by Kyven’s side at all times. Don’t let him near Amryssa. Or any other woman in this house, for that matter.”
Bitterness flooded my tongue. “You mean...you want me to babysit him?”
“Yes.”
“What about at night?”
“Especially then. He can’t be permitted to go prowling the halls. You’ll have to keep him in your room.”
“Oh, great.” A laugh scraped up my throat, but I’d dug this hole myself. Now I would have to dig myself out.
“Andtrynot to kill him. Not yet. If he makes an attempt on you, you’ll have to deflect it without slitting his throat.”
I grumbled. “Now you’re just taking the fun out of it.”
His gaze thinned.
I raised open palms. “Sorry, sorry. Just kidding. Sort of.”
“Hilarious,” Olivian said stonily. “And do not, under any circumstances, consummate this marriage. If you do, the annulment will be out of reach forever.”
The memory of Kyven’s tongue stirred a crackling heat inside me, but I shoved the feeling down into the darkest parts of myself. Of which there were plenty, apparently. “Come on. Do you really think I’d stoop so low?”
“You’re young. Which is synonymous with idiotic. And Kyven’s pretty. Prettier than Merron, at least. Even I can see that much.”
Blood crept into my cheeks. I hadn’t realized Olivian knew about my dalliances with the steward, but apparently I’d misjudged a whole fuck of a lot. “I’m twenty-seven, not a teenager. I can control my baser urges, thanks. Not that they were ever that depraved to begin with.”
“Good.” Olivian’s attention slid to the corner. He startled, so subtly that I almost missed it, but then that look crept over him again. Haunted. Hunted.
With our typical animosity stripped away, I found the courage to finally ask.
“What’re you looking at?” I said. “When you do that. Who is it you’re seeing?”
Olivian’s jaw flexed. For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer, but he grunted and said, “My wife.”
My eyebrows rose. “Amryssa’s mother, you mean?”
He looked away. Not toward the corner again, just...not at me.
“You can see her even though she’s gone?” I pressed.
He sighed, irritated. “If she is, that hasn’t stopped her from expressing her displeasure at how I’ve handled things with our daughter.”
I frowned. “Isthatwhy you want to send Amryssa away, then? Because her mother’s ghost tells you to?”
He emitted a cold bark of laughter. “No. Just the opposite. She keeps asking me to turn Amryssa loose. Into the marsh.”
My gut lurched. “What? No. Don’t listen to her. She’s not real.”
“I know. It feels that way sometimes, but...” He picked at his leather blotter. “I know. It’s just a splinter of the nightmares, lodged in my brain. Mostly, I ignore her.”
I nodded, only halfway mollified. I’d never met the Lady Marche—she’d died before I’d been made keymistress, one of the nightmares’ earliest casualties. But Amryssa always spoke of her mother in reverent tones, and in Oceansgate, people whispered about how deeply the seneschal had loved his wife. Back then, they said, Olivian had governed fairly. Only after the Lady’s death had he descended into callousness and obstinacy.
“That was hers, you know.” He gestured to the dagger. “Before that was yours, it belonged to my wife.”
I startled. He’d never so much as hinted at the dagger’s provenance before. Briefly, I considered asking for more, then decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. The weapon wouldn’t belong to me for much longer.
Because... Shit. I’d left Amryssa alone with Kyven, hadn’t I? The very thing Olivian had asked me not to do. “Well, thanks for the chat.” I stood, itching to go.
