Page 48 of Invidia
“That’s strange,” Meera mused. “Because I know that, and I’ve only spent perhaps an hour in the guy’s company.”
“I came here for emotional support, not helpful feedback,” I laughed, accepting the fresh cup of tea Meera slid toward me.
“Well, you’re getting both.” She gave me another ghost of a smile that almost reached her eyes. Not for the first time, I wondered what it would take to make Meera really smile. “Just… I don’t know. Maybe neither of you have been as wholly honest as you should be.”
“No, maybe not,” I agreed, holding my cup up so the steam warmed my face. “It seems like we should be having bigger problems than that though, right? He’s not human. Shouldn’t that be what I’m struggling with?”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “You didn’t seem to mind that in the courtyard that night. Or on any of those long walks—”
“Okay, okay,” I laughed. “Point taken.”
“I’m half asleep, I’m going to head up to bed. I’ll leave you to reflect on all that helpful feedback,” Meera added, mouth twitching with amusement as she blew me a kiss over her shoulder before leaving me next to the glowing embers of the fire.
I didn’t want to reflect, because reflection meant acknowledging my own mistakes, and my head was a more pleasant place to be when I ignored those.
But at the same time, I hadn’t told Evrin I liked him. I’d assumed that he’d known, then gotten mad when he hadn’t. I downed half my tea like it was whiskey, admitting at least to myself that it wasn’t the only unfair burden of expectation I’d placed on Evrin.
He had been such a calming presence from the moment I’d met him, and I’d leaned hard on that. But Evrin wasn’t my emotional support Shade. It wasn’t his responsibility to handle my raging insecurities. It was mine. And perhaps a lot of those insecurities would have been mitigated if I’d understood why he was so reticent to pursue anything more with me.
And perhaps they would have been mitigated if I’d just had the courage to have the conversation.
It was a scary prospect, but if anyone was worth being brave for, it was Evrin.
Chapter 17
Iwas such an even-tempered Shade. Everyone said so. The only things the realm knew about me was that I was calm, cursed without horns, and I guarded the in-between.
The latter two still held true, but I felt anything but calm this morning. From the moment I’d gotten back to my room after the end of Tallulah’s “date” last night, I’d been in a restless, frustrated rage. The kind of rage I hadn’t felt since I was a child, and I’d realized just how different I was and how inferior that made me in the eyes of everyone else.
It wasn’t fair that Tallulah looked at me like she needed me when she didn’t. It wasn’t fair that if I wasn’t who I was, I’d be perfect for her. It wasn’t fair that I knew how she tasted on my tongue and felt against my body, and I’d just have to live with those torturous memories for the rest of my life, watching from the darkness as she moved on.
I groaned as someone knocked on my door, tentatively calling my name. No one ever knocked on my door or spoke to me, I didn’t see why that had to change now.
On the off chance that it was an emergency, I forced myself to get up and open the door.
“Hey,” Cavan said, immediately taking several steps backward. “Tallulah is at the barracks asking for you.”
“Tallulah is here?” I asked, stumbling out into the corridor and slamming the door shut behind me. “Who is accompanying her?”
“No one—”
I pushed past him, sprinting down the long corridor to the small stone entrance to the building where we received guests—in the very loosest sense of the word, since no one would ever choose to entertain here.
Of course, by the time I got there, Tallulah was surrounded by curious members of the Guard who were eager to impress. And while I wanted to stay strong, and keep some emotional distance between us, I couldn’t hold myself back when Tallulah’s pleading eyes found mine, the hints of overwhelm already present in her tight smile and the way she kept smoothing down her hair.
“Move,” I barked, grateful for a change, that so many Shades jumped out of my way, worried their horns would vanish by proximity. “Can’t you see that you’re crowding her?”
Tallulah’s smile turned into something far more genuine, but I couldn’t let it get to me, or this obsession would never run out of fuel.
Now that the initial panic to get to her was over, the realization of why she was probably here set in. I hadn’t given her a chance to address the awkward response to me last night—I’d excused myself and asked Verner to walk Tallulah back to Elverston House.
I should have known I couldn’t put it off forever. This was the reckoning I’d been trying to avoid.
“Hi,” Tallulah said slightly sheepishly, glancing at the crowd who’d taken a few steps back but were still filling the entryway. “I was hoping we could talk?”
“Sure,” I agreed tightly. Why was she saying this in front of everyone? The other members of the Guard were going to get the wrong impression. “Did you want to discuss the security of the in-between?” I asked awkwardly, attempting to provide her with a plausible excuse for talking to me.
“No, I want to talk about us.”