However aging worked for witches, Lorietta had been younger when Garin first showed up on the Aglovens’ doorstep. Maybe even younger than Lilac. “Did they not know how to start a garden before?”
“Cultivating crops in the middle of the forest is a difficult task.” Garin laughed, but it was tinged with bitterness. “You assume she would know how to keep a garden. Why, because she’s a commoner?”
“No. Lorietta is a resourceful and talented witch. I didn’t want you taking all the credit for her doing.” Her cheeks burned, embarrassed at her assumption as she surveyed his fully furnished room and lush plant collection. “I just wasn’t expecting all of this.”
“She comes from a long lineage of arcane nobility from Germany and a successful mother from Paris. You were raised with a silver spoon, she with a bronze wand, and great manor before her parents died in an accident and her great aunt adopted her. The two barely knew a thing about gardening before I arrived.”
She was silent as she processed this.
“You’ll learn as she did,” Garin said a bit sternly, a bit defensively, “that prejudice—the line between privilege and poverty—is not simply drawn by access to food, shelter, and wealth. Or even blood. Little wouldyouknow, it runs much deeper than that, and what she grows in that garden is still occasionally supplemented from the outside markets to accommodate all our guests. Your family and hers are different in that Lorietta was raised to turn no one away, within reason.”
Face heating, she said nothing to fight him. He was right. About everything. She was finally beginning to understand, though she wasn’t sure if she ever would fully. The Fenfoss Inn was more than an establishment for an overnight stay or an ale. It was where the lone traveler, Daemon or human, could find warm food, cold drink, and kindred conversation. They had little resources to feed themselves and those they housed, and whether or not funds were an issue, Lorietta could not simply stroll into town onany market day without being scrutinized, or possibly harassed. She didn’t seem the type to hide or shrink herself for anyone, and rightfully so. Although magic folk lived scattered throughout Paimpont, surely they weren’t treated fairly. Shifters themselves either lived in seclusion or became recluses because of it.
Under her rule, this would all change. Lilac turned on her heel and prepared to lead him up the stairs as she contemplated these things.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Something in his voice made her freeze. “Upstairs. Lorietta sent me to retrieve you.”
“Are you angry with me?” There was a genuine curiosity in his words.
When she turned, he was watching her intensely.
The question surprised her, and her gaze dropped to the floor as she hesitated a beat too long. “No.”
When she looked back up, he was smiling knowingly at her.
Her eyes narrowed.Fine. She would play along. Lilac stepped down and strode toward the middle of the rug—then slinked past him. She considered sitting on his bed, but it felt too forward. Which was ridiculous, considering he’d once made her come with the hilt of her own dagger.
He’d followed, naturally. She retreated, taunting him, her lips slightly parted and face flushed, taking him in.
Garin stalked her with a bounce in each step, slowly dancing them both, untouching, toward the end of his bed. Hands behind her to feel for the stone and keep herself from raking her nails into him, she came to rest against the wall. She was nearly panting when he cornered her.
“Do not lie to me, Eleanor of Brittany.”
“Vivien is dead,” she breathed, as if he’d drawn the answer from her.
“That she is.”
Her hungry smile faded at his unapologetic answer. “Why? Why would—” She broke off at the look he gave her, stripping her bare.
“Why? She needed to be stopped. With someone like her, there is only one way that happens.”
But there were so many things that could’ve gone wrong. What if the crowd at her Court of Common Appeals had been much larger? Some Sundays, she’d seen the entire room filled with townsfolk when Henri was king. What if she’d been hosting a dignitary, or someone from a foreignkingdom? She didn’t even know if those who were there could be trusted to keep quiet until she had the chance to make an announcement about their deaths.
Lilac’s chest heaved—desire, shock, wonder, rage all swirled inside her. “But you could havetoldme.”
“Told you? Or asked for your permission?”
“Forgive me for thinking it would have been helpful to know about something that would trigger a rather public investigation, something that could have sparked anarchy if it was revealed the wrong way.”
“You would have tried to talk me out of it. It wouldn’t have worked.”
“You cannot just murder everyone who crosses me,” she said, unable to help her voice rising.
“Crossed?” His teeth were suddenly bared into a sneer. “She has more than crossed you. Vivien wouldn’t have stopped until you were dead. She wanted all that was destined for you to go to Sinclair. She wanted it more than her own life.” His next words came in a scraping whisper, dancing in the breeze across her skin. “Are you so unaccustomed to anyone fighting for you? Killing for you, Eleanor?”
Her body flushed at his mention of her name, the way his eyes danced when he said it. “It is I who you are avenging, yet I who will shoulder the consequences of it.”
