“Evangeline dragged me here. I don’t want anything from you.”
He makes a noise low in his throat. Almost a laugh. “Evangeline. My Sentinels are cowards.”
If Maven were my friend, I would warn him not to underestimate a daughter of House Samos. Instead, I hold my tongue. The steam sticks to my skin, feverish as hot flesh.
“She brought you here to convince me,” he says.
“Convince you to do what?”
“Marry Iris, don’t marry Iris. She certainly didn’t send you in here for a tea party.”
“No.” Evangeline will keep scheming for a queen’s crown up until the second Maven puts it on another girl’s head. It’s what she was made for. Just like Maven was made for other, more horrible things.
“She thinks what I feel for you can cloud my judgment. Foolish.”
I flinch. The brand on my collarbone sears beneath my shirt.
“Heard you started smashing things again,” he continues.
“You have bad taste in china.”
He grins at the ceiling. A crooked smile. Like his brother’s. For a second, Maven’s face becomes Cal’s, their features shifting. With a jolt, I realize I’ve been here longer than I even knew Cal. I know Maven’s face better than his.
He shifts, making the water ripple as he dangles an arm out of the bath. I wrench my eyes away, look down at the tile. I have three brothers, and a father who can’t walk. I spent months sharing a glorified hole with a dozen stinking men and boys. I’m not a stranger to the male form. Doesn’t mean I want to see more of Maven than I must. Again I feel myself on the edge of quicksand.
“The wedding is tomorrow,” he finally says. His voice echoes off the marble.
“Oh.”
“You didn’t know?”
“How could I? I’m not exactly kept informed.”
Maven shrugs, raising his shoulders. Another shift of the water, showing more of his white skin. “Yes, well, I didn’t really think you were going to start breaking things over me, but . . .” He pauses and looks my way. My body prickles. “It felt good to wonder.”
If there were no consequences, I would scowl and scream and claw his eyes out. Tell Maven that even though my time with his brother was fleeting, I still remember every heartbeat we shared. The feel of him pressed up against me as we slept, alone together, trading nightmares. His hand at my neck, flesh on flesh, making me look at him as we dropped from the sky. What he smells like. What he tastes like. I love your brother, Maven. You were right. You are only a shadow, and who looks at shadows when they have flame? Who would ever choose a monster over a god? I can’t hurt Maven with lightning, but I can destroy him with words. Poke at his weak spots, open his wounds. Let him bleed and scab over into something worse than he ever was before.
The words I manage to speak are quite different.
“Do you like Iris?” I ask instead.
He scratches a hand along his scalp and huffs, childlike. “As if that has anything to do with it.”
“Well, she is the first new relationship you’ll have since your mother died. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays without her poison in you.” I drum my fingers at my side. The words sink in slowly, and he barely nods. Agreeing. I feel a surge of pity for him. I fight it tooth and nail. “And you were betrothed two months ago. It seems fast, faster than your engagement to Evangeline at least.”
“That tends to happen when an entire army hangs in the balance,” he says sharply. “Lakelanders are not known for their patience.”
I scoff. “And House Samos is so accommodating?”
A corner of his mouth lifts in ghost of that crooked smile. He fiddles with one of his flamemaker bracelets, slowly spinning the silver circle around a fine-boned wrist. “They have their uses.”
“I thought Evangeline would have turned you into a pincushion by now.”
His smile spreads. “If she kills me, she loses whatever chance she thinks she has, however fleeting. Not that her father would ever allow it. House Samos maintains a position of great power, even if she isn’t queen. But what a queen she would have made.”
“I can only imagine.” The thought shudders through me. Crowns of needles and daggers and razors, her mother in jeweled snakes and her father holding Maven’s puppet strings.
“I can’t,” he admits. “Not really. Even now, I only ever see her as Cal’s queen.”
“You didn’t have to choose her after you framed him—”