I don’t like to think about that. It has at least another month of uses. Replenishing it is a problem for future Harlow.
Her violet eyes light up and she grins. “I like to imagine you’ll resort to disguising yourself with a fake mustache and wig.”
“Either way, there’s nothing to be done for my dark circles now, but I thought you’d glamour—” I wave at my eye.
“Why should I fade it? So everyone else can feel comfortable?” She laughs bitterly. “If our parents are happy to abandon me with that monster, the least they can do is look at the damage. Everyone else stares at us no matter what. May as well give them a show.”
As much as we have in common, this has always been where Aidia and I differ. She wants to make her problems everyone’s problems by dragging them out into the light. I’ve always been content to take care of injustice in the dark.
“Whatever this dinner is about, I hope it doesn’t drag on. I havebetter things to do than hear who is newly engaged or what tragedy befell the most recent group of scouts who ventured beyond the city walls,” I say.
Aidia grins and her eyes sparkle. For a moment, she looks like her old self. “I know you’re an old, wizened widow, but the young bachelorettes fuss over this sort of thing. It’s just one dinner with the most powerful families in Lunameade.”
I walk to the window and look out at the carriages lined up in front of the manor. “I suppose you’re right. Maybe there’s been a new baby blessed with some rare magic or?—”
Movement in the reflection in the glass catches my eye.
“Miss Carrenwell.”
I turn as Gaven steps around the corner and stands at rigid attention, his arm extended to act as my escort.
“Gaven, must you alwayslurk?” I snap. “Call me by my Divine-damned name when we’re alone. I can’t stand the ceremony.”
He frowns, the movement accentuating the deep groove in his brow. “Who were you talking to?”
I don’t even need to look to know Aidia has managed to disappear. It has nothing to do with magic, and everything to do with years of practice. She’s always been good at slipping away unnoticed, thanks as much to her ability to bend light and cast illusions as her knowledge of every passageway and hiding place in this mansion—knowledge she’s been gracious enough to share with me.
“Myself,” I mutter.
Gaven’s pale green eyes dart down the hallway as if looking for some unseen danger. When I was young, I’d never seen someone with such strange pale eyes, and I believed it when Aidia told me that they gave him the magical ability to see danger. Now I know that he’s just well-trained and used to my tricks, as any bodyguard should be.
All Carrenwells have a bodyguard. When I was young, I thought it was ridiculous. We’re the most powerful family in the city, both politically and magically. But when there was a particularly swift and deadly breach eleven years ago, it was Gaven’s vigilance and fearsome fighting that protected me when South Hold was overrun with Drained.
Looking at him tonight—his hair, once a deep ashen brown, gone almost entirely gray, and the faint lines of his face shadowed by thechandelier light—it occurs to me that he looks old. Not in his posture, which is still the perfect rigid stance of a soldier, or in his build, which is as broad and muscular as it’s always been, but in the look in his eye that is more wary and, perhaps, more weary than it’s ever been. He was handsome once—he still is for an older man—but something has shifted in him over the last few months, and it’s bothering me that I can’t put my finger on it.
“Did you hear the bells earlier? Southwest Hold isn’t very far. You should stay in tonight,” Gaven says. “You know how quickly things can shift. It’s been eleven years, but the attacks are more frequent than ever now.”
He’s always quick to remind me of that attack when he suspects I’m preparing for one of my nightly excursions around the city. Just like he’s always quick to bring up the fall of Mountain Haven.
The fort along the only trading route for Lunameade was supposed to be impenetrable. But one night ten years ago, their sturdy granite wall fell, and the Drained killed every last man, woman, and child inside. Seemingly overnight, the only stronghold we had outside our city walls became Fallen Hold, and Lunameade was cut off from the world. We became more isolated than we had been since my ancestors founded the city.
I know Gaven is hoping the fear will be a sobering reminder to keep him close, but I refuse to be a prisoner in my own house.
I’m well aware that the bloodsuckers outside the city walls aren’t the only threat. There are plenty of bloodthirsty people safe inside our city who would love to get a crack at one of the Carrenwells. Once a year, some overzealous rebel storms our gardens and Gaven proves his worth.
The rest of the time, he makes himself an unrelenting pain in my ass.
I weave my arm through his. “Do you know what this dinner is about?”
Out of the corner of my eye, the tight line of his mouth momentarily dips into a frown. He knows something.
“Care to share with me?”
“Perhaps if you share how you manage to sneak out at night?” he counters. “Or what you’re doing out there?”
I bat my lashes at him. “Oh, are we going to gossip? So eager for newsof my latest love affair? I’ll tell you mine if you tell me what I’m walking into.”
He ignores my taunting.
