“I believe it goes around your neck.”
Aren whips around to face Lorn. “What are you doing here?”
He rises from the tombstone. “Just keeping the nalkinshom company.”
Aren turns back to me. His gaze travels over me again. This time, it’s almost as if he expects to find an open wound. “You’re okay?”
“Yeah,” I answer, frowning. Lorn met me at a gate a few miles north of the tor’um’s home. A rebel named Kian escorted me there, then handed me an anchor-stone. He left me with Lorn. I assumed that was because he was supposed to fissure me here. Maybe I was wrong?
“He didn’t hurt you?” Aren asks.
A snippet of conversation comes back to me, Aren saying it would hurt if Lorn had to pull the location of the Sidhe Tol from my mind. Lorn’s reaction was strange back in Lyechaban. I assumed that was because he hadn’t touched a human before, but his touch also felt odd. It felt odd again, penetrating, when he took my hand at the gate.
I twist around to face him. “You invaded my—”
“It didn’t work,” he says with a sigh. “Apparently, humans are immune to my magic.”
Aren gently squeezes my arm. “You’re sure you didn’t feel any pain?”
A chaos luster, hot and enticing, travels to my shoulder, so I pull free of his grip. “No. It didn’t hurt.”
“Don’t overstress yourself, Jorreb,” Lorn says. “If it worked, I would have had the Sidhe Tol from her in Lyechaban. I came only to make sure it wasn’t a flute.”
“Fluke,” I mutter. I don’t know if I believe him.
“We’ll talk later,” Aren says, his tone firm. Lorn shrugs in response.
“This goes around my neck?” Aren asks me, holding up the tie. “Like a noose?”
“Yeah, well.” I turn my back on Lorn and take the tie. I’ve never in my life put one on a man. “It’s suppose to go around like this”—God, he smells delicious—“and hang like this. But I’m not sure what to do with the knot. And these need to be fastened.”
The top two buttons of his shirt are undone. My fingers brush his skin when I button the bottom one. I start on the top.
Aren’s hands cover mine. “Is it important?”
If this was anyone but Paige’s sister’s wedding, I’d say it doesn’t matter, but Amy’s marrying a lawyer who comes from a family of lawyers. He’s paying for this shindig tonight, and Paige swears he doesn’t know how to tell her sister no. Thus the formal dress and the booking of the Marbarrage Mansion.
“You’ll draw attention without it.” I pass the tie behind his neck. A shudder runs through him when the silk sweeps across his nape. I manage to ignore it and the heat of an edarratae as it tingles up my fingertips.
While I’m working on the tie, I use the added height my heels provide to peek at the tag on his jacket. Armani. Figures.
“You fae have expensive tastes.”
“Kelia has expensive tastes,” Aren says.
“She went shopping?” Stealing is the more appropriate term, but I’ve never been one to worry much about semantics.
“She needed a distraction.”
Lorn steps up and frowns at my work. “You’re doing it wrong. That goes under, I think.”
I slap his hand away. “When did you become an expert?”
“Even a fae can tell that’s a mess.”
I glare at him. Then I whip the tie off and start again.
Aren lets out a frustrated breath. He’s having trouble standing still and his muscles are knotting up like he’s prepping for a fight, and maybe he is. Kyol might already be here somewhere, waiting for us. For me.
“Are you finished yet?” Aren asks.
I undo my sorry excuse for a knot and restart. “This would be easier if you wouldn’t move.”
Lorn says something in Fae that I don’t understand. When Aren chuckles, I make the knot exceptionally tight.
In the end, I give up. I decide it’s better to have no tie than one that’s atrociously looped and crooked.
“Just forget it,” I say and stuff the blue silk into his pocket. Maybe Paige can fix it later.
“Thank the Sidhe,” Aren mutters unfastening the top button of his shirt. He looks at Lorn. “You can leave now.”
Lorn responds with an indulgent smile, then turns to me. “McKenzie, if you should need anything when you return to the Court, please do send a message.” With a wink, he steps back and opens a fissure.
Shadows dance when the slash of white light disappears. Aren doesn’t give me time to read them. He pulls me toward the gate that leads into the mansion’s gardens. It’s locked. He places his hand over the bolt and flares his magic. The metal glows red from the heat of his touch. Then, with one firm tug, the melted lock falls to the ground.
When the gate screeches open, he extends his hand. I accept it, but only because I have zero experience walking in high heels.
“One thing,” he says before I enter the garden. He reaches into his pocket.
I open my mouth. Close it. I don’t know what to say because the necklace is stunning. The chain is white gold, delicately linked and long enough to put the strand of thirteen diamonds right below my collarbone. The diamonds are smaller on the ends, but about the size of a nickel in the center, and, even on this moonless night, they sparkle like drops of light from a gated-fissure.
“Why are you giving me jewelry?” I manage after a moment.
A smile tugs at Aren’s lips. “It’s Kelia’s. She says you can keep it if you send Naito back to her. Otherwise, she’s promised to plant evidence linking its theft to you.”
Oh, hell. This isn’t like stealing a suit or a dress from some department store. This necklace has to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not that I’m worried about Naito. Kyol would never hurt a human, not on purpose, and I’m almost certain I saw him press an anchor-stone into Naito’s palm. I told Kelia this. She just stared at me blankly until I swore I’d make sure he’s okay and that they would be together again. Guess she’s holding me to my oath now, but I don’t need the necklace as a reminder.
I push Aren’s hands away. “I don’t wear pretty things.”
“That dress is pretty. I’ve always thought dresses were impractical but this . . .” He lets his fingers trail down my side. “It clings just right. I think I like impractical.”
He makes sure he brushes my skin when he reaches behind me to fasten the necklace. His breath is warm on my neck. I don’t know if he’s having trouble with the clasp or if he’s lingering on purpose, but my body reacts to his touch. My eyes drift shut.
“Stop,” I say suddenly. “Aren, stop this.”
He fastens the clasp and removes his hands. “Stop what?”
“I don’t know why you’re doing this.”
“You want to stay with me.” He says it as if it’s fact.
I shake my head. “It’s your edarratae, Aren. That’s all. It manipulates my emotions, makes me think I want things that aren’t good for me.”
“I agree.”
“And it doesn’t matter what you . . .” Wait. “You agree?”
“Taltrayn’s not good for you.” He moves toward me. I back through the open gate and into the gardens. “The Court’s not good for you. They’ve manipulated you.”
The earth gives way to my heels. Aren reaches out, taking my arm to keep me balanced. Frustrated, I shake him off.
“What do you want from me? You want me to refuse to go? You need me to get Lena back and to have any hope of the Court letting Naito go.”
“I want you to admit I’m not the monster the Court’s made me out to be. Admit that you trust me.”
“Trust you? Are you kidding me?” I sweep my hair away from my neck and jab a finger at my scar. “You almost killed me!”
“Humans will hear you if you continue to yell.” He closes the distance between us again. “And I apologized, nalkin-shom. I’m sorry I hurt you.” He runs his fingers through my hair, combing the dark locks back over my scar. “I’m very sorry.”