She would never let them.
Lilac plucked two flutes of champagne from the tray. “She is kind and a good person, and—” she glanced at Piper, who’d plopped down in the vanity chair, hands trembling around the bottleneck. “She won’t do it again.” She held the flutes out. “Please take these and never,everspeak a word of this to anyone.”
“I didn’t know I’d entranced you.” Piper’s face was the picture of humiliation. “I didn’t realize it until I spoke with Lilac. I promise it won’t happen again.”
Yanna scoffed. “I’m sure.”
“She’snew,” Lilac snapped.
Isabel accepted her flute, but Yanna refrained. “Vampires don’t frighten us. Those of us who worked the Rennes nightlife are quite used to them. Although, sheisthe first we’ve met who can walk during the day. Andyou’re right,” she said, her scathing gaze boring into Lilac. “I know nothing of marriage. Under your leadership, perhaps I never will.”
Fed up with Yanna’s mood, Lilac turned to her most insufferable handmaiden. “What are you talking about?”
“You sent my beau off to Fougères.”
“Your beau.” Lilac stepped back, stunned. She hadn’t even known Yanna had been seeing someone. Yanna’s searing resentment seemed to intensify all the more as panic flitted across Lilac’s face. She’d hoped, vainly, that her momentary lapse of composure would go unnoticed. It had not. “Your fiancé is one of my guards?”
“Yes,” Yanna replied. Were Lilac a vampire, she’d fear her handmaiden’s pointed stare alone would have set her skin aflame. “No need to fret. He’s one of the few you haven’tsucked off.”
Lilac’s ears began to ring, annoyedly nudging the flute in Yanna’s direction again. She didn’t know what else to say.“You could’ve told me. I would have held him back with the others.”
Yanna snatched the drink from Lilac. “We are in love, but I have my reservations.” She glanced over at Isabel who sipped at her drink, wandering over to the sweets tray. “Marguerite and Henri just hired us. We’ve been here a little less than a month—we’d be stupid to pass up such positions after everything we’d been through to get here.”
“The offer did sound too good to be true,” said Isabel. She plopped onto the bed next to the bonbons. “They’d said you were in desperate need of companionship and had run off into Brocéliande. We felt compelled to respond. It would’ve given us another opportunity at employment and shelter together.”
Piper seemed to have calmed; she sat cross-legged on the vanity chair, blotting the blood off the rest of her neck with a napkin. She cocked her head, her gaze flitting between Yanna and Isabel.
“I don’t like the hunger in your eyes,” Yanna said. “Was the wine not enough?”
Piper shook her head. “You’resisters, aren’t you?”
Isabel drew back ever so slightly, her brow furrowed subtly as she reassessed Piper. Her surprise at Piper’s accusation had washed her wariness away, and a smile crept across her face until she was beaming. “Howcan you tell? You’re the first person who’s ever guessed. We’ve gotten best friends. Partners, even.”
Piper exchanged a shocked glance with Lilac, smiling wryly. “I don’t know. I just had a sense.”
“We are. So the records show.”
They hardly looked related. Yanna’s eyes were green as springtime, and Isabel’s, the warmest brown that turned to fire at sunset. Yanna’s long hair was a plain straw blonde, often tightly knit against her scalp. Isabel’s was dark and thick, waterfalling just between her tan shoulders. Maybe their nose bridges and brows were a bit similar, and the way their mouth set to the left when they were trying to problem solve.
They were always together. They mirrored each other often. She supposed they bickered like sisters. They finished one another's sentences and shared across plates at supper. Still, Lilac never would’ve thought…but maybe that was because she knew nothing of having sisters herself.
“It doesn’t matter,” Yanna said sternly. “We were left at the same orphanage in Rennes twenty-six years ago. We don’t make a habit of telling people. That way, we’ve stuck together. Most establishments don’t like hiring relatives. Especially sisters.”
“Especiallytwins,” added Isabel.
Suddenly, she understood Yanna’s reservations. Marriage for either one would’ve meant their separation. Traditionally, Lilac’s blessing and their ceremony would’ve led to the termination of Yanna’s contract, leaving Isabel to work there alone once they moved into their own home.
“Well, I’m glad you’re both here. Your secret is safe with us, we won’t say anything.” Lilac could barely keep up with the twists and turns of the conversation, much less the day. “Where did my parents find you?”
Setting her empty flute down on the nearby table, Yanna looked at her sister with a fierce protectiveness. Her forehead creased, as if worried she’d said too much. “When the search parties were dispatched to look for you, your parents sent requests through the town criers. One morning, as we were getting ready for work, we noticed someone had slid a pamphlet under our door sometime the previous night.”
“They were desperate to find someone,” said Isabel. “We’d never seen anything like it.”
Lilac laughed a mirthless laugh. It was a sound born of annoyance farmore than amusement. “There were several eligible maidens who would’ve been offered the position outright, but it’s likely they were advised by their families to stay away.”
“Because of your Daemon tongue?” asked Isabel.
“Because they’re idiots,” answered Piper.
