now it’s no longer unexpected.”
Sylas raises his eyebrows. “Other than as much as we don’t know why they’d mean to. What business do they have here—and why would they want to catch us unawares?”
“I’m not sure. My man wasn’t even clear on when exactly they plan to come, only that it sounded as though it’d be fairly soon. It may be they simply want to check up on us, or it’s possible—”
As Whitt speaks, he glances toward the kitchen and catches sight of me. His mouth snaps shut in mid-sentence. Sylas follows his gaze, his mismatched eyes pinning me in place before I can consider ducking out of sight.
I grip the doorframe tightly and decide to pretend I was part of the conversation all along. “Who’s Tristan? Why would it be bad for him to come?”
Whitt frowns again, but Sylas answers me as if I asked a totally reasonable question. “He’s a second-cousin to one of the arch-lords. Which means he has plenty of prestige and influence, and he can decide to use those for good or ill. And seeing as we’ve already lost rather a lot of favor that we’re hoping to regain…” He grimaces and returns his attention to Whitt. “We’ll need to begin preparing immediately.”
“Are the three of us going to take on the entire task?”
I open my mouth to offer that I’ll help in any way I can, but Sylas’s gaze slides to me again, so abruptly solemn my voice dries up.
“No,” he says. “We’ll need to incorporate the pack. Talia, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to confine yourself to your room until this matter is dealt with.”
24
Talia
On the TV screen, a screeching woman leaps at the girl she’s been berating, trips, and lands face-first in an icing-slathered cake. Not even a hint of a laugh tickles from my lungs at that or at the sight of the goopy mask of frosting covering her face when she straightens up, her eyes bulging.
I turn the movie off and flop onto my back on the sofa. I should be glad that after Sylas said I’d be confined to my room, he amended that to two rooms. I’ve spent most of the past few days in the keep’s entertainment room, flipping through books I’m too distracted to really focus on and watching movies from the fae lord’s collection—with headphones on, to make sure none of the pack members he’s brought in to help prepare the keep catch on that I’m down here.
But now I’m bored out of my mind. I can’t even remember whether this is the fourth day or the fifth, they’ve blurred together so much—even more than before.
I’ve barely seen Sylas or his cadre. They knock when they leave meals outside the door and when it’s time for me to move from my bedroom to the entertainment room or back again, and a couple of times Sylas has spoken to me briefly from the doorway to confirm I’m all right, but otherwise I’ve been totally isolated. They don’t want to take the chance that the rest of the pack will smell me on their clothes if they’ve spent too much time around me, he explained.
If he’s that intent on keeping my presence here a secret, then that’s got to mean he isn’t planning on offering me up to this second-cousin of an arch-lord dude, right? Or maybe he just wants it to be a big surprise. With every hour that passes since I cuddled against him in his bed, those intimate moments feel less real, less trustworthy.
Aren’t faeries supposed to be tricksters? How can I trust anything any of them have said to me?
My stomach grumbles despite the tension wound through it. It must be getting on toward dinner. I’ve got even less sense of time than usual in this windowless basement room.
The knock comes as if on cue. But when I open the door, I find not a plate of food but August standing a few feet away, empty-handed.
He smiles at me, and I’m ridiculously relieved by the genuine warmth in his expression. I haven’t seen him since he took off from the kitchen the other morning. However he felt about what he guessed about Sylas and me, at the very least he doesn’t appear to hate me.
“Hanging in there?” he asks.
I shrug, feeling abruptly awkward. I’m not going to mention that earlier incident if he doesn’t. “It hasn’t been the time of my life, but it’s still way better than an