“We’re not early,” Sathia said beside Tharion, her face tight. “The formal dinner started fifteen minutes ago. If I were to guess, it’s been moved to another location for everyone else.”
“No one wants to eat with us?” Hunt asked.
Bryce said, “They probably consider it beneath them to mingle with our ilk.” Hunt, Baxian, and Tharion turned to her with incredulous expressions. Bryce shrugged. “Welcome to my life.” Hunt was frowning deeply, and Bryce added to him, unable to help herself, “You don’t need to feel guilty about that one, you know.”
He glared at her, and the others made themselves scarce.
“What does that mean?” Hunt asked quietly.
It wasn’t the time or place, but Bryce said, “I can’t get a read on you. Like, if you even want to be here or not.”
“Of course I do,” Hunt growled, eyes flashing.
She didn’t back down. “One moment you’re all in, the next you’re all broody and guilty—”
“Don’t I have the right to feel that way?” he hissed. The others had already reached the table.
“You do,” she said, keeping her voice low, though she knew the others could hear them. One of the downfalls of hanging with Vanir. “But each of us made choices that led us to all this. The weight of that’s not only on you, and it isn’t—”
“I don’t want to talk about this.” He started walking toward the center of the room.
“Hunt,” she started. He kept walking, wings tucking in tight.
Across the room, she met Baxian’s stare from where he was pulling out a chair at the table. Give him time, the Helhound’s look seemed to say. Be gentle with him.
Bryce sighed, nodding. She could do that.
They served themselves, and sat at random spots along the massive table, large enough to seat forty: Ruhn, Flynn, Sathia, and Dec in one cluster; Tharion, Baxian, Hunt, and Bryce in another. Lidia claimed a chair beside Bryce, definitely not looking to where Ruhn watched them from down the table.
“So this is Avallen,” Lidia said, breaking the awkward silence.
“I know,” Bryce muttered. “I’m trying to scrape my jaw off the floor.”
“It reminds me of my father’s house,” Lidia said quietly, digging into her potatoes and mutton. Hearty, simple food. Definitely not the fine feast Morven and his court were indulging in elsewhere.
“They must both have a subscription to Medieval Living,” Bryce said, and Lidia’s mouth curved toward a smile.
It was so weird to see the Hind smile. Like a person.
The males must have been thinking the same thing, because Baxian asked, “How long, Lidia? How long since you turned spy?”
Lidia gracefully carved her meat. “How long since you started believing in the cause?”
“Since I met my mate, Danika Fendyr. Four years ago.”
Bryce’s chest ached at the pride in his voice—and the pain. Her fingers itched with the urge to reach across the table to take his hand, just as she had last night.
But Lidia blinked slowly. And said softly, “I’m sorry, Baxian.”
Baxian nodded in acknowledgment. Then said to Lidia and Hunt, “I kind of can’t get over being here with the two of you. Considering where we were not that long ago. Who we were.”
“I bet,” Bryce murmured.
Hunt tested the edge of a knife with his thumb, then cut into his own meat. “Urd works in mysterious ways, I guess.”
Lidia’s eyes glimmered. Hunt lifted his glass of water to her. “Thanks for saving our asses.”
“It was nothing,” she replied, slicing into the mutton again.
Baxian put down his fork. “You put everything on the line. We owe you.”
Bryce glanced down the table and noticed Ruhn watching them. She gave him a pointed glance, as if to say, Chime in, asshole, but Ruhn ignored her.
Lidia’s mouth kicked into a half smile. “Find a way to kill the Asteri, and we’re even.”
The rest of dinner was mostly quiet, and Bryce found herself growing weary enough that by the time she’d finished her plate, she just wanted to lie down somewhere. Thankfully, one person in the castle deigned to engage with them: an older Fae woman who gruffly said she’d show them to their rooms.
Even if they weren’t welcome, at least they were given decent accommodations, all along the same hall. Bryce didn’t really mark who bunked with whom, focusing solely on being shown to her own room, but she didn’t fail to notice the awkward beat when Tharion and Sathia were shown through a door together halfway down the hall.