The woman standing beside Alie—Cecelia, Lore recognized now, though she looked clear-eyed and poison-free this afternoon—gave Bastian a mock pout. “Are you saying you’re better than me, Bastian? As I recall, I beat you last time we played.”
He chucked her under the chin. “Yes, but I was very distracted.”
Cecelia blushed prettily and cast her eyes away.
The man next to Cecelia glanced at Lore with a long-suffering expression. “You’re always distracted, Bastian.”
“You wound me, Olivier.” Bastian put a hand to his heart. “Don’t be cross; you distract me just as much as your lovely sister.”
Olivier rolled his eyes, but high flags of color rose in his cheeks. The blush made him and Cecelia look obviously related, highlighting bright-blue eyes and dark hair.
“Save your flirting for after the game.” Alie marched forward, headed for the doors that led to the green. “I am focused on a different kind of conquest.”
“Gods spare us all,” Gabe muttered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
What’s the difference between a poison runner and a god?
If you pray, the poison runner might hear you.
—Overheard in an Caldienan tavern, 306 AGF
An hour into their game, Gabe had fortunately managed to refrain from hitting Bastian with a mallet. Lore had, too. However, she’d also managed to refrain from hitting the ball through the wicket.
“It’s your right arm, I think,” Alie said. She’d made Lore stand still, bent over and ready to take a whack at the black ball on the grass, so she could inspect her form. “You’re holding it too stiffly, so when you swing, you’re hitting the ball with the side of the mallet instead of the front.”
“So I should bend it?” In the past hour, Lore had discovered that while she held no real love for croquet, she especially didn’t hold any love for losing. She stuck out her elbow, taking it from straight to nearly a right angle.
“Not that much.” Alie pushed her arm in slightly. “There. Now give it a go.”
Lore did. The ball missed the nearest arch, but curved enough to inch through another.
“Finally!” She straightened, beaming, and resisted pumping the mallet over her head in victory.
Bastian, leaning on his own mallet at the edge of the playing field, gave her a gleaming grin. “Wrong wicket, dearest.”
Well, shit.
“That makes the score ten for us and four for you.” When Cecelia had first started keeping score, she’d sounded excited that she, Bastian, and Olivier were winning so handily. Now she almost sounded embarrassed.
Olivier, however, smothered a laugh in his palm. Cecelia smacked her brother’s shoulder. She really wasn’t that bad, when she wasn’t sipping belladonna tea.
Next to Lore, Gabe sighed and hefted his own mallet. It seemed he hated losing just as much as Lore did.
Alie watched him line up his shot, her lip between her teeth. Lore picked up her mallet and came to stand next to her. “Sorry I’m making you lose.”
“Oh, don’t be silly.” Alie waved a hand. “Last week, I beat Olivier in all three rounds we played on singles, so now he’s just trying to save face and show off for Bastian.”
Her words were light, but her eyes still tracked Gabe. Lore couldn’t quite read the other woman’s expression. It was too complicated to be longing, too soft to really be regret.
Gabe, for his part, had hardly spoken to his former betrothed beyond what was courteous. Lore had seen Alie try more than once to strike up a conversation, and while Gabe wasn’t rude, he didn’t do much more than nod. When Alie was near him, he itched at his eye patch, as if her presence reminded him it was there.
“Well,” Lore said, “maybe you and I and Gabe can have a few practice rounds before next time.”
A sunny smile broke over the other woman’s face. “That sounds lovely. And it reminds me: I sent you that tea invitation for later this week, but I wanted you to know it was a standing invite—my friends and I meet every Sixth Day, and we’d love to have you join us whenever you’re able.”
Unfamiliar warmth suffused Lore’s chest. This offer of friendship was probably more about Gabe than it was about her—the way Alie watched him made it clear she wanted to know the man her former betrothed had become—but she’d take it. She hadn’t had friends in a while.
And being friends with Alie might help her find more information about who in the court could be working with Kirythea.