The cold moved back into the space between us. He didn’t speak. I was grateful.
I pushed off the railing. “Goodnight, Mr.Graves.”
He said nothing. He only looked at me with dragon eyes, silent and narrowed, still doing whatever ancient, violent math the word boyfriend had handed him.
I left the balcony and didn’t look back. The door closed behind me.
I walked the length of the library at a pace very slightly too fast. I went down four flights of stairs. I went back to my quarters. I closed my door.
I didn’t sleep.
He had followed me down. I heard him in the stairwell again. Twenty paces back. And he would still be there in the morning.
Before
Rhain
The dinner was at seven. It was just past half six. Bjorn was waiting in the corridor and would walk down with me. Bjorn had walked into formal occasions with me my entire life and wasn’t going to start letting me walk alone tonight, of all nights.
I had told Bjorn that morning that I had it under control.
Bjorn had saidyes, but meantI am going to keep watching anyway.
I opened the door. He was waiting and wasn’t alone.
Bjorn stood in the center of the corridor. Two of our enforcers waited several paces behind him, dressed for dinner, expressions bland, shoulders loose. Anders and Soren.
I paused. “That seems unnecessary.”
Bjorn had watched kings embarrass themselves and dragons set cities on fire. He had been equally unimpressed by both. He looked at me. “It isn’t.”
Anders adjusted his cuff.
Soren looked down the hallway as if the corridor architecture had become a matter of sudden private interest.
Subtle, all of them.
“You ate,” Bjorn said.
“I ate.”
“You ate enough.”
“I ate enough, Bjorn.”
His eyes moved over me, top to bottom, and came back. Jacket.Hands. Mouth. Throat. “You won’t do anything foolish tonight.”
“Of course not.”
“You won’t even if Graves does.”
The corridor seemed to wait with him.
“That,” I said, “is the part I’m less certain about.”
Bjorn gave the smallest nod. Not approval. Confirmation of risk. “Then you’ll let us be certain for you.”
“I’m not a child.”