It was that worry that hounded her as they wrapped up lessons, panting and sweating despite the frigid morning thanks to the Valkyrie sprints they’d been practicing: ten seconds at a full sprint, thirty seconds trotting, another ten seconds sprinting … For fifteen minutes straight. Once they could get through it, they’d add in their shields. Then swords. All of it designed to build their stamina and focus on controlling their breathing between bursts of attack and retreat. All of it utter insanity that couldn’t quite dull the edge of Nesta’s fretting as she asked Emerie and Gwyn, “Do you want to stay over at the House with me tonight?” She motioned to the archway. “Have a read-in or something?”
Gwyn blinked, considering. She had not set foot outside of the library save to come to these lessons or to use the practice ring to hack at that ribbon. But she said, “I’ll ask Clotho.”
Emerie smirked at Nesta, as if aware of why she needed company. “Sure.”
That evening, Nesta and Emerie read in companionable silence in the private library, waiting for Gwyn. Emerie had sprawled across the armchair, legs dangling over an arm, her back against the other. Without looking up from the book in her lap, she said, “Cassian must be really good at sex, if you’re so tied up in knots while he’s gone.”
Nesta cleared her throat, dispelling the memories of his mouth, his strong body, the way his silken black hair fell on either side of his face as he lay over her, swaying as he pounded into her. “He’s …” She made a low noise in her throat.
“I figured,” Emerie said, chuckling. “He’s got the Walk.”
“The Walk?”
Emerie smirked. “You know, when a male knows how to use his cock well and struts around with that swagger that basically declares it to everyone.”
Nesta rolled her eyes. “I’d hope he knows how to use it well after being alive for five hundred years.” She snorted. “Though I’ve met plenty who proved that wrong.”
Emerie arched a brow for her to continue, but a knock sounded on the library door. Gwyn’s head popped in, and she scanned the room before entering. She bore a small bag, presumably of what she’d need for the night. Nesta had already asked the House to prepare a bedroom for all three of them to share, and she’d entered the private library to find it transformed: by the window against the far wall, a worktable and chairs had been swapped for three cots, each laden with blankets and pillows.
Gwyn smiled, though her pulse pounded wildly against the column of her throat. “Sorry I’m late. Merrill made me go over a paragraph with her ten times.” Gwyn sighed. “Please tell me all the chocolate is for us.”
The House had stocked the table between the armchairs with piles of chocolate: truffles and confections and bars of it. Along with cookies and small finger cakes. And a platter of cheeses and fruit. And carafes of water and various juices.
Gwyn surveyed the table. “Did you go to all this trouble?”
“Oh, no,” Emerie said, eyes glowing. “Nesta’s been holding out on us.”
Nesta scoffed, but Emerie said, “The House will get you anything you want. Just say it aloud.” At Gwyn’s raised brows, Emerie said, “I’d like a slice of pistachio cake, please.”
A plateful of one appeared before her. As well as a bowl of whipped cream topped with raspberries.
Gwyn blinked. “You live in a magic house.”
“It likes to read,” Nesta admitted, patting a stack of the romances. “We’ve bonded over that.”
Gwyn whispered to the room, “What’s your favorite book?”
One thumped on the table beside Emerie’s cake, and Gwyn squawked in surprise. But then rubbed her hands together. “Oh, this is delightful.”
“That smile means trouble,” Emerie said.
Gwyn’s grin just widened.
Two hours later, Nesta found herself fully clothed in a bathtub in the middle of the private library, the entire thing filled with bubbles. No water, just bubbles. In matching tubs on either side of her, Emerie and Gwyn were giggling. “This is ridiculous,” Nesta said, even as her mouth curved upward.
Each one of their requests had gotten more and more absurd, and Nesta might have felt like they were exploiting the House had it not been so … exuberant in answering their commands. Adding creative flourishes.
Like the fact that each bubble held a tiny bird fluttering about inside.
Silent fireworks still exploded in the far corner of the room, and a miniature pegasus—Nesta’s request, made only when her friends goaded her into submitting one—fed on a small patch of grass by the shelf, content to ignore them. A cake taller than Cassian stood in the center of the room, lit with a thousand candles. Six frogs danced circles around a red-and-white-spotted toadstool, the waltzes provided by Nesta’s Symphonia.