didn’t take an unnatural bond to sense the grimness still in him, despite all the calm she’d poured into him on the terrace. It took all Judah had to let go of Theron when she’d hugged him goodbye; to watch Elly kiss his thin cheek, and not tell her to hold on a bit longer.
Judah and Gavin didn’t look at each other. It wasn’t necessary.
After they left, Elly prepared for her day, her bustling too busy. She didn’t normally chatter this much about her hair, her earrings. “I hate this dress. I hate the way it hangs. It won’t necessarily be a disaster,” Elly said, and it took Judah a moment to realize the subject had changed. “Maybe all he lacks is confidence. And forty pounds of muscle, and the ability to see past the end of his nose. Oh, it doesn’t matter what I look like. I’m just oiling the stupid rushes.”
Judah picked up an earring and put it down again. “Elly—”
“What?”
She’ll be in his study by sundown, making the deal. Neither of us will be able to stop her.
“Your dress is fine,” Judah said.
Elly sighed. “Come get me the moment you hear anything, okay?”
Judah wanted to be where she could be found, so she waited in the parlor, hyperaware of every sensation she picked up from Gavin. Burning muscles in her thighs and back: riding. Pain in her palms and fingers: were his fists clenched, or was she just feeling her own blisters? She’d forgotten her gloves when she’d gone to the stable the day before. A faint headache: that could be hers, too. It wasn’t foolproof, this connection of theirs. When Gavin was on the training field, she felt every blow, but the aches and pains of daily life were harder to pin down. She wished they’d arranged a signal for when the moment came. It might have already come. Theron could be dead already.
She still couldn’t believe he would do it.
She scratched him until the skin on the inside of her wrist grew raw. At first the answers came immediately, almost impatiently—all right? All right—but then they stopped coming at all. Anxiety wrapped her in a tight cold girdle, squeezing her stomach, making it hard to breathe.
Noon came. With it, a tray of bread and meat paste, along with a bowl of early tomatoes from the greenhouse. The tomatoes were as hard as apples. She didn’t even bother trying to eat. The smell of the paste was thick like body sweat. It drove her into her boots—Theron’s old boots—and out.
Down to the stables. Where else could she go?
“How long does a hunt take?” she asked Darid. He was scooping out warm mash, the earthy smell of which didn’t bother Judah at all, and the low chomping of the horses who’d already been fed was as peaceful as Theron’s shooting had been relentless, the day before.
“As long as they want it to. Or until they’ve killed everything there is to kill,” he said placidly. Judah flinched. He noticed, frowned a bit with his eyes. “Or until the hounds are too tired to run anymore, I guess. Are you worried?”
There was no point lying about it. “Accidents happen all the time on hunts. People get shot, hit in the head, thrown from horses—”
“It’s not the horses you have to worry about.” He finished with the mash and headed into the tack room; she followed. A saddle lay over a sawhorse. He picked up a rag and a bottle of oil and began to rub it down. After each swipe the saddle leather went dark and glossy, then dull again. “If it were me, I’d be worried about courtiers who can’t shoot. And the hounds, of course.”
“The hounds?” She thought of the kennel: the high slatted walls, the barking and growling that emanated from beyond them at the slightest noise.
“I used to work with them.” The steady motion of the rag didn’t falter but his voice was hesitant, as if he were telling her something he shouldn’t. “My first job inside. I was excited at first. I always liked dogs. But they’re not dogs. They’re—something else.” His mouth tightened. “And they aren’t trained for clean kills.”
Judah felt like she’d stumbled into some deep pit of feeling in Darid, something secret and uncomfortable. He wouldn’t look at her. Awkwardly, she said, “I’m shocked to learn that there’s an animal you don’t like.”
Then he did look at her, sidelong. “Well, I didn’t much like the kennel master, either. And he didn’t