13

The rain began to fall an hour ago.

The soothing putter patter of the droplets hitting the paned windows almost lulled me into a sleep, but I startle as the flames in the hearth flash blue.

I sit against the wall, in the same spot Daxeel left me in before the rain started; when he kissed a tender touch to my mouth, then let his fingers slip from my jaw; when he drew back with a step and watched the blankness of my face crumble into something ugly and hollow.

Then he listened as I released a cold, clanging scream.

He didn’t stay another heartbeat.

As I slid down the wall and thudded to my bum on the cold hardwood floor, he stalked out of the study—

And left me here to cry.

So I cry I did. Sobbed myself ragged. Suppose I started to drift off sometime after the rain began, and almost found a deprived slumber.

But the flash of blue flames tugs me out of my trance.

I peel myself off the floor.

Dinner should come shortly. Maybe now. I don’t know. My mind is a chugging bog, it’s lost deep in fog, and I’m stumbling around blind.

Mindlessly, my stocking-clad feet drag over the floors of Hemlock. They scrape up the stairs and down corridors. And they take me to the solitude of my bedchamber.

I lock myself away.