“What happened to her?” Seliah breathed, leaning forward, intent gaze focused on Nic.
What answer to give her? Nic could see herself in this young woman, feel the silvery-cool magic in her, so like her brother’s, but stagnant like the marsh water. “Her fairy godmother arrived to save her,” she said. “The fairy taught the princess’s brother how to break the spell. He did, and they lived happily ever after.”
“Truly?” Seliah brightened with painful hope. “Do you think that—”
Knock-knock-knock.The crisp alert on the door made them both jump. Nic let out a huff of a laugh—but Seliah sprang to her feet and ran for the wall of glass doors leading to the balcony. A steady rain slid down the glass, and one door appeared to be slightly ajar, which explained Seliah’s unobserved arrival.
“Wait,” Nic called, springing to her feet. “It’s only lunch!”
But Seliah had dashed out the doors and scrambled with impressive agility over the railing. Nic dashed after her, too slow to do anything but watch as the young woman leapt from handhold to foothold, reaching the back lawn and disappearing around the side of the house. With a groan, Nic tapped her forehead on the railing. Gabriel would not be happy with her.
“Was that Selly?” Gabriel’s mother, Daisy, said behind her.
Nic turned reluctantly, then quickly relieved the older woman of the heavy tray she carried. “Yes,” she replied with a wince. “She came to see if I was really going to have a baby. We decided she’d be Aunt Selly. Your knock startled her and she ran off, I’m sorry to say.” Nic was babbling, but she felt absurdly guilty. Daisy didn’t understand what was wrong with her odd daughter, and Nic couldn’t explain it to her. Not in a way the barely magical woman from Meresin would understand. Maybe not ever.
Daisy stared toward the balcony and her vanished daughter with a look of disappointment and profound irritation. “I despair of that girl, truly I do. We haven’t laid eyes on her since you arrived, Lady Veronica. Not that it’s your fault! I don’t mean to imply that at all.” Daisy wrung her hands together. “Of course, we haven’t laid eyes onyousince you arrived!” She laughed uneasily, wincing. “Which is fine. We’ve barely seen Gabriel—just the once when he stopped by the levee—so I thought, well, I would bring your lunch myself!” She focused fully on Nic for the first time since entering the room, her eyes going wide. “Oh, your beautiful hair! What happened? You cut it all off.”
Nic ran a hand over the cropped hair, glad it was at least clean and somewhat orderly. What excuse to give? Daisy wouldn’t understand about the bonding ceremony either. This living amongst the nonmagical led a person from one lie to another until you were caught in a sticky web of them. “An Elal custom,” she said, which was close enough to the truth to give her answer a tone of confidence. “The bride and groom cut each other’s hair to symbolically demonstrate leaving their old selves behind to make a new home together.”
Daisy’s face cleared of one worry, at least. “Ah, that makes a kind of sense. Gabriel telling me he got his caught on a branch sounded just too strange.” Daisy considered her. “Why wouldn’t he tell me the truth?”
Why indeed? Or why wasn’t he a better liar? “I asked him not to,” Nic said, freely embroidering on her own tale. “Until I could explain it to you myself.” Speaking of too strange… but Daisy seemed to accept that, nodding absently.
“Where is Gabriel?” she asked.
“Taking a bath.” Nic tipped her head at the closed bathing chamber door. Though whatwastaking him so long? “I think he might’ve fallen asleep,” she added, hoping that would be in character. Given how much magic Gabriel had spent, the pitched fight with the hunters, along with a restless night fighting Vale for bed space, Nic wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had. But Gabriel didn’t strike her as a napper. Some people were and some weren’t. How little she knew about him still.
Fortunately, Daisy smiled, beaming maternally at Nic’s dishabille. “Too much honeymooning, yes? Though you two could go at it more easily.” She patted Nic’s belly with affectionate familiarity. “After all, the bun is already in the oven.”
Yes, but the manse won’t raise itself out of the swamp,Nic managed not to say aloud. Instead she smiled and nodded. An all-purpose reply that seemed to satisfy Daisy.
“Well, I’ll leave you two to your special time.” She turned to go, then paused at the door. “Could we have dinner all together sometime?” she asked wistfully. “Gabriel mentioned planning a wedding, so the family can attend?”
“Yes, of course,” Nic agreed immediately. Anything to avoid another awkward dinner with Gabriel in that dining hall. “Tonight?”
Daisy clasped her hands together. “Oh, I would love that. I’ve made some lists.”
Nic found herself smiling in genuine kinship. “I’ve got lists, too,” she confided. “And about more than the wedding. I’d like to share with you some plans for the house renovation, and get your ideas.”
“Oh.” Daisy put a hand over her heart, going misty eyed, so clearly moved to be included that Nic kicked herself for not thinking of it before. “I would love to be involved.”
“Bring your lists tonight,” Nic told her warmly, then hesitated. “And probably the food? I feel like a terrible hostess—Maman would be cross with me—but…”
“It’s not your fault, dear,” Daisy said kindly. “House Phel is a mess, and I know it. How about this? You two come to our house. It’s not much, but it’s clean and dry, and I can promise the food will be hot. You can bringyourlists to me.”
“That sounds like a perfect solution.” Nic only hoped Gabriel would think so, too. “See you this evening.”
Daisy gave her a happy wave and slipped out, Nic putting the manual lock into place as silently as possible. She didn’t want to offend Gabriel’s family, but she’d also had enough of being surprised for one afternoon. Then she went to the bathing chamber and eased the door open, peeking in. Gabriel indeed slept in the tub, his head canted back, face utterly lax, his mouth having fallen open slightly in the lassitude of deep sleep.
He’d at least cleaned up before he passed out, his silver hair sleeked dark against his skull, tanned and muscled arms free of smudges where he’d draped them along the rim of the tub, his elegantly long fingers hanging loose. He looked nearly angelic like this. Not frowning or brooding darkly, not annoyed by or frustrated with her. Not bashing his head against the forces of his magical nature. Her idealist, forever thinking he could change the world. A rush of affection filled her, and she hesitated, wanting more than anything to brush her fingers over his unfurrowed brow, to lick the beads of water from that muscled chest.
She also wanted to keep him just like this, happily asleep and tormented by nothing. She should also probably wake him up, get him out of the cooling water and on to eating lunch. No doubt he was as hungry as she was. Though he also needed sleep.
She was dithering over the decision still when his eyes popped open, staring suspicious holes into the ceiling before he fastened his black gaze on her. “Where’s Selly?” he demanded, and Nic sighed for the brief moment of peace, lost now.
Picking up a towel, she sauntered to him. “Your sister left again. Shall I help you dry off?”
Gabriel frowned at her. At least he looked like his usual self now. That was something. “What do you mean she left—where did she go?”