expression on him before he banished it. “I have a tent to set up in the safe room.”
He strode from the sunken living room, leaving me frowning in thought. That had been rather abrupt—and there’d been a definite hint of long-hidden heartache. Eyes narrowed, I looked from Trent to Quen for any signs of similarity. Then I shook my head and dismissed the notion. Even with genetic intervention, they looked far too dissimilar to be related. It was obvious that Quen had loved Trent’s mother, but it didn’t follow that they had had, er, relations.
“A tent?” I asked, and Trent’s focus sharpened.
“Indoor camping,” he said, thoughts realigning. “We’ve never done it for naps, but it should make sleeping in their closet seem normal.”
“Lucy, Ray,” Quen said as he crouched at the table to put his eyes even with theirs. “Your mother would like to nap with you. Would you like to make a camp?”
“Tent party!” Lucy exclaimed, her eyes brightening.
“What’s a tent party?” Zack asked, voice loud to be heard over Lucy, now demanding to be let down out of her chair.
“Tent party! Tent party!” the little girl chanted as Quen expertly wrangled her into his arms. “Zack, open it,” she demanded as she pointed at a kitchen cupboard. “Get the marshmallows!”
Ray didn’t look nearly as happy, but I had a feeling it was because she was watching Trent, and Trent was frowning. “You’re telegraphing,” I warned him, and he shook himself out of his mood, smiling as he went to the little girl.
Ellasbeth, too, stood, but she wasn’t nearly as adept at hiding her emotions. “Trent, if you’re compromised, let the Order handle it,” she said, telling me exactly what their conversation in the SUV had been. “You don’t have to save the world.”
“I’m not saving the world,” he said as he lifted Ray and brushed the Cheerios from her. “I’m saving myself and my family. The Order doesn’t care if Landon dies as long as they capture the baku. The entire world knows that Landon and I have a personal war going on. If he were to end up dead, who do you think will be blamed? Landon would have his success from the grave.”
“But you don’t have anything to do with it,” Ellasbeth protested.
“When has that ever mattered?” Trent asked, then turned to Ray, setting her down and asking her to get a nap-time book. Eyes on Trent, Ray reluctantly took Quen’s hand and went into her room with Lucy.
“Tent party!” Lucy shouted again, and Buddy trotted to join them.
“You do this a lot?” I asked, and Trent’s easy mood returned if only for a moment.
“Ah, yes,” he admitted, seeming embarrassed. “But we usually set the tent up downstairs. Maybe someday, Quen will let us sleep under the stars. Excuse me. I need to talk to Quen.”
I nodded, but he was already moving, and I smiled at the sound of Ray’s cheerful demands.
That left me alone with Ellasbeth. My smile slowly fell as she began to clean the high chairs. She was trying to be useful. I knew the feeling. “Ah, sorry about this,” I said as I brushed the remaining Cheerios into my hand and dropped them in one of the bowls.
“The baku?” Ellasbeth took the bowls and went into the kitchen. “It wasn’t your fault. I appreciate you taking an interest and helping Trent with it.”
Interest? I thought, wondering if she’d been listening to any of this. “No, I mean everything,” I said, and she went still, turning the running water off with an abrupt motion.
“Is that remorse?” she said, her perfect eyebrows high and mocking. “Tell me, Rachel,” she said, color high, “what would you have done differently? Not goaded me into acting like a jealous child by leading me to believe you were a paid whore and then an old girlfriend? Not arrested Trent at our wedding? Not encouraged him to go to the ever-after, where he was put on the auction block as a slave? Or perhaps opting to not help him cross the continent to steal my child?”
Oh, that. “I am an old girlfriend,” I said, thinking of our time at camp. I’d been, like, eleven, and Trent thirteen, but the more I remembered from it, the more I thought we’d been sort of like friends. Or enemies with a common cause, perhaps. “I never encouraged him to go into the ever-after to retrieve the ancient elven DNA to revive your species,” I added, not sure why I was defending myself.