I nodded, cheeks warming.
“Idiot Shadow.” She grinned and squeezed me. “I don’t want to go anywhere… not for the foreseeable future, at least.” She winced. “I might need to travel to Albion to settle things with the estate at some point. I haven’t heard anything about whether he has any living relatives.”
“I mean… if he does, we could always get rid of them.”
“Bastian.” Another swat. “We are not killing some random person because they’re a little inconvenient.”
“Very inconvenient,” I muttered, catching her hand. I planted a kiss on her palm. “If they take that estate from you…” I let my glower complete the sentence.
“With a little luck, he has no relatives left, and the queen will decide I should have it. Service to the crown and all that.” She shrugged, but I spotted her brief wince, like she wasn’t at all convinced.
“You did stop unCavendish.”
“As I recall, I was lying on the floor when you killed him.”
“But I wouldn’t have known to kill him if not for you. Your queen owes you. We should petition her to give you the estate on that basis. I could draft a letter and ask Braea to sign it.”
This time her face scrunched up in more than a brief wince. “Perhaps.”
“We’ll fix this.” I took my time kissing away her wince.
When I pulled back, she made a little sound of complaint, fingers digging into my back.
This was what I’d seen in the woman who’d held herself so tightly in Lunden. Passion. Pleasure. A thirst for beauty—for life in all its expressions that had been kept locked away.
And now here she was, coming in to all of that.
Heart full, I kissed the tip of her nose. “Since you’re staying, I can show you this.” I disentangled myself from her and locked the door leading to Brynan’s office.
She watched, brow furrowed, as I went to the panels depicting the Celestial and Tellurian Serpents and opened the hidden door. “A secret passage? You really are a spymaster.”
She followed me into the darkness, letting me guide her and whisper the directions in her ear so she’d know in the future. When we reached the courtyard door, I took her hand and showed her how the ring I’d had made for her fit the indent and opened it.
As we stepped into the secret lodestone, she gave a soft gasp at the shift from one plane to another, and her mouth fell open when she saw the courtyard, which was no longer overgrown. I’d planted it with aconite, foxgloves, hemlock, and other poisonous plants—ones I was fairly sure she could touch, despite her magic. Ones that could hurt as well as kill, as my itching wrist reminded me. I’d even managed to get the fountain working, and lily pads crowded the edges of its pool.
“What is this?” she asked, bending over the purple bells of deadly nightshade.
I held my breath as she stroked its petals. The plant didn’t so much as droop.
“Yours.”
She snapped upright. “What?”
“It’s a secret lodestone. I’m giving it to you. Only one other person has a key for Dawn’s side.” I nodded towards the other door. “But if you lock it with your ring, they can’t come through and startle you while you’re in here.”
She looked at me as though I was speaking in tongues.
“I planted all this for you. Well”—I gestured at the fountain and the other side of the courtyard, which I’d cleared but awaited plants—“half of it. I thought you might like to do the rest. Now you can control your magic, I’m sure you can plant some roses.”
She blinked at the empty flower beds. “I… I don’t…” She touched her chest. “You did this for me?”
“Of course. I hesitated about telling you about it before you had a cure. I didn’t want you to feel obligated to stay because of this. But now you’ve decided to stay for a while at least, I thought it would give you some pleasure.”
Her chin trembled, and she frowned at the plants. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say nothing. Just enjoy it.”
I stood back as she walked a slow circuit, skimming her fingertips over plants, the fountain’s stone edge, the bench I’d uncovered beneath the brambles.
“Bastian,” she said at last. She clasped her hands before her. “This is so much—so perfect. Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure—truly. I look forward to seeing what you do with it.”
“Hmm.” She nodded, glancing at the plants. “It’s so warm in here, everything’s flowering months early. The palace walls—their magic must create a microclimate.” She went on, muttering to herself about soil type and rose varieties.
I shut my eyes, letting the passion in her voice flood over me as I had in Riverton Palace’s gardens. Listening to her speak to the supposed gardener about roses had revealed the fire behind her guarded exterior. From that moment I’d been doomed.
“You know…” She said, suddenly close, and when I opened my eyes, I found her only a foot away. “I haven’t properly shown you my gratitude for being my antidote all these months.”
“You don’t need to thank me for that.”
“I wasn’t going to thank you.” She peered up at me from beneath her lashes. “You like the feel of my poison, don’t you? When it’s just a light dose.”
My cock twitched at her tone, yet my chest grew tight. This felt dangerous, like it might be a trap to allow her to wrestle control from me. With hesitance, I nodded.
She blinked up at me, all innocent, but the way she slowly licked her lips was anything but. “Then tell me to get on my knees so I can show you exactly how grateful I am.”
A groan so low it was just beyond hearing reverberated in my chest. Still… “You don’t have to do—”
“I know.” She placed her hand on my chest, touch hot through my shirt. “I choose to. Now tell me.”
I slid my fingers into her hair, breaths suddenly a little too fast. “On your knees, love. Show me what that lying little mouth can do.”
With a smirk to put the Wicked Lady to shame, she obeyed.
82
Bastian
I had every one of my spies stationed around the palace and key routes through the city. An army of entertainers, cooks, and guards filled the building with unfamiliar faces, but somehow we reached the start of the wedding ceremony and nothing had gone wrong.
As the queen’s representative, I stood on the throne room’s dais, with the royal entrances behind me, one in each corner. Ahead, the aisle led to two sets of double doors—the main entrances used by most folk from Dusk and Dawn. Snowdrops, narcissi, and golden suns decorated the space for Dawn’s triumph—marrying off one of its heirs and the hope more would come from their union. The ceremony would be held in here, followed by a ball in Dawn, then we’d return here late this afternoon for the eclipse when Braea would appear and make a speech with the king.
I’d exchanged a few polite words with Lucius and his wife, who sat to one side. Questions about unCavendish and the Crown of Ashes plagued me whenever I saw him, but they were questions that had to go unasked.