He chuckles and looks away. “So prickly.”
“You would be too if you’d been vomiting and curled up in pain for three days.”
“How do you feel now?”
I cross my arms. “Like I’ve revealed enough of myself.”
His gaze drops to my breasts. “Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s just the right amount.” There’s a heated interest in his eyes. It would be unnerving if I weren’t relieved that he’s looking at me the same way.
Henry shakes his head and climbs out of the pool, grabbing a towel from the table on the edge of the room, and wraps it around his waist before he turns back to me. “All right. I think that was quite enough for both of us and the last thing I need right now is for my parents to find out I showed you that this was here. Harlow—” He waits for me to climb out and hands me a towel. “I need you to understand that this is a very big secret. Not to my people, but?—”
“Tomypeople. I know,” I say, knowing very well that it will be the first thing I offer my parents.
“Let’s go, lovely. This was a good start, but you should rest up before this wedding.”
23
HENRY
The night is a fierce, breath-stealing cold. The wind tears at my coat as I pass through the gates from level two to level one of the fort. A chill zips up my spine.
I’ve tried to banish the dread by returning here over and over—conditioning myself to the rush of memory of the moment I first knew the fort might fall. But all my efforts have been in vain. The fear of that night never quite leaves me. It has grown roots inside my chest. Vengeance on the Carrenwells is the only thing that has a chance of ripping it out.
Kyrin trots along beside me, closer than usual. I think he senses my apprehension. Maybe that’s why he’s finally left Harlow’s side, or maybe he stayed there in the first place because he knew she was in pain. Ky has wandered progressively closer the lower I descend through the fort.
The eleven bells ring out from back atop the level six wall. I should be in bed, resting ahead of tomorrow’s wedding, but instead I’m trudging through the dark fort with just the sliver of the moon in the sky.
The colorblindness that came with my first death used to bother me in this kind of darkness. But where my vision was diminished by my journey across the veil, my other senses returned sharper. I could probably navigate these streets and alleyways blindfolded at this point.
I’m energized from this new knowledge of my wife-to-be. Harlow has pain that can’t be cured by the well in Lunameade. While I’ve only been working on her for a short time, this chance at revenge has been such a long time coming. Finally, I know something valuable.
I know there’s so much more to learn about Harlow. At first, I thought her way of talking around things was just a deflection—the result of being around magical people who could probably tell how she was feeling and what she wasn’t saying—the practiced dance of someone who must always be cautious. But there was real pain in her eyes when I told her about Holly.
If she were the idiotic, spoiled city girl I was expecting her to be before I met her, I might feel bad about sharing what she told me. But Harlow is a worthy adversary. She’s probably off spouting everything I told her to her bodyguard now. I’m suddenly glad I burned the note from her family and instructed the dove keepers to confiscate any correspondence she or Gaven try to send.
Music spills out of a pub to my right, the sound of laughter and glasses clinking punctuating the frantic fiddle music. The familiar sounds of a normal evening should be relaxing, but they set my nerves on edge.
I always feel that way when I’m on the first fort level at night, but it’s worse with Harlow here. The stakes are higher.
The bright white scar of the mending against the darker, weathered cream of the rest of the wall is impossible to ignore, even in such low light. I turn down the straightaway that leads to the front wall, trying to settle the restlessness that hasn’t left my body since I walked Harlow back to her room and made sure she actually read the ceremony sequence for tomorrow.
Pre-wedding jitters would make sense if I were actually worried about the success of my marriage. This is more of a growing apprehension that I’m in over my head. The more I learn about Harlow, the less I understand her. It’s not as if I expected it would be easy to overthrow the family that’s ruled Lunameade for generations, but this is a type of warfare I am unprepared for.
Kyrin trots ahead of me, claws clacking on the stone. I climb the stairs behind him and turn right, nodding at the guard stationed at thebell tower by the front gates as I walk toward the mended part of the wall.
My father is standing exactly where I expected him to be. He does this often—walks through the fort in the evenings, checking on our people as he makes his way down to the wall. He stays for a while, sometimes just watching the forest or others walking the wall.
He smiles as I approach. “Surprised to see you down here. Tomorrow’s a big day. I take it you have news.”
I slide up beside him and lean my elbows on the stone railing, looking out at the towering trees. “Harlow is ailing. She has episodes of severe pain in her head that come with nausea and shifts in vision.”
My father tilts his face toward me. I can’t read his expression when he’s backlit by torchlight. “Is that why we haven’t seen her in a few days?”
“Yes, she locked herself in her room under the guise of being in prayer and meditation before our wedding. Apparently the well in Lunameade hasn’t been able to heal her.”
“Not everything is meant to be mended by the Divine,” my father says. “Some ailments are teachers.”
“I doubt she would agree with that assessment.”
