Chapter 4 - Wren

Wren

I turn around expecting security. A guard. Somebody big, somebody scary, somebody sent to drag me back downstairs and hand me over to whoever wants to yell at me first.

I do not expect a woman standing three steps down in a pale blue dress, hands folded in front of her like she's waiting for tea instead of chasing down a servant girl at midnight.

She's older, maybe mid-fifties, with silver-blonde hair loose around her shoulders instead of pinned up like every other woman at that party. Her eyes are washed-out blue, and they're locked on me with an intensity that doesn't match how calm the rest of her looks, like she's been waiting her whole life for this exact moment and is somehow still not sure she believes it's happening.

Briar steps in front of me anyway, arms out, because Briar doesn't care who you are, apparently, even if you're a middle-aged woman in pearls.

"You're not taking her anywhere," Briar says.

"I'm not here to take her anywhere she doesn't want to go." The woman's voice is soft, almost gentle, nothing like I'd expect from someone who just chased two kitchen staff up three flights of stairs. "My name is Aida. I'm Bron's mother."

The name lands like ice water down my back. "Then you should know we're not interested in whatever your family wants from her," Briar says.

"I understand why you'd think that." Aida's eyes haven't left mine this whole time. Not angry. Not disgusted, the way I braced for. Something else. Something closer to hungry, like she's cataloguing every inch of my face for a reason I can't guess at. "I'm not here on my husband's behalf. I'm here because I need to see her. That's all. Just see her."

"See her for what?” Briar asks.

"I'll explain when there's time." Aida finally looks at Briar, and something in her expression softens, just slightly. "You can come too, if it makes this easier. I only ask that you let me speak to her."

Briar glances back at me. I don't know what my face is doing, but whatever it is, it makes her drop her arms slowly, though she doesn't look happy about it.

"Five minutes," Briar says. "Same rule as before."

"That's fair," Isolde says, and something about how easily she agrees, how little she argues, scares me more than if she'd pulled rank and made us follow her.

We go down a different staircase than the one we came up, narrow and unmarked, the kind of hallway meant for staff to move through a house unseen. Aida walks a step ahead of me the whole way, and twice I catch her looking back at me over her shoulder like she's checking I'm still real.

"Can I ask you something?" she says finally, quiet, like she doesn't want the walls to hear.

"Okay."

"Where are you from?” She asks, and my stomach drops a little.

"I don't know. I don't remember anything before I was six."

She stops walking. Just for a second, right in the middle of the hallway, like the answer hit her harder than the question should have.

"Six," she repeats.

"Yeah."

"And before that?” She asks.

"Nothing. Miriam, the healer, she found me at the edge of the territory. I don't remember where I came from or who I was before that." I don't know why I'm telling her this. I've never told anyone this much this fast in my whole life, but something about the way she's asking makes it feel like the answer actually matters to her, not like small talk. "Why?"

"No reason," she says, too fast, and starts walking again before I can push it.

We end up outside a study door at the end of the hall, dark wood, cracked open just enough to spill light into the hallway. Isolde stops in front of it and turns to face me fully for the first time since the stairwell.

"He's in here," she says. "I'll give you a few minutes."

“Wait… What? You're not coming in?” I ask.

"No." Something crosses her face, something sad and old that I don't have a name for. "This part isn't mine to be part of. But Wren…” She says my name like she's testing the shape of it in her mouth. "Whatever you feel for my son right now, don't let anyone talk you out of trusting it. Not him. Not his father. Not anyone."

Then she's gone, walking back down the hallway without looking back, leaving me standing outside a door with Briar hovering a few feet behind me and my heart slamming so hard I can hear it in my own ears.

"That was the weirdest conversation I've ever witnessed," Briar mutters. "You good?"

"No," I say honestly.

"You want me to come in?” She asks me, and I look at the door. The burn under my ribs has been building this whole walk, quiet but steady, and now that I'm standing this close, it's turned into something almost unbearable, a pull so strong my hand actually lifts toward the door on its own before I catch it.

"No," I say. "I need to do this by myself."

Briar doesn't look happy about it, but she nods and steps back, arms crossed, planting herself against the opposite wall like she's not moving from that spot for anything. I push the door open.

He's standing by the window with his back to me, jacket gone, tie hanging loose, and he turns the second the door creaks, like he already knew it was me before he even looked.

His eyes are still silver. Neither of us says anything.

I open my mouth, some part of me still trying to explain, to say something about his mother, about the questions, about how none of this makes sense, and nothing comes out. The burn under my ribs has gone from an ache to something roaring, something too loud for words to fit around, and the second his eyes lock on mine, every thought in my head just goes quiet.

He takes a step toward me. I don't back away.

"I don't know your name," he says, low, like it costs him something to admit it.

I don't tell him. I can't. My throat's locked up tight, and my whole body is leaning toward him like gravity's stopped working right, like he's the only solid thing left in the room, and explaining who I am feels impossibly far away from whatever this is.

He crosses the rest of the distance in three steps. I should back up. I should say something, anything, hold onto some piece of the fear that's been chasing me since the ballroom. Instead, my hands come up and grab the front of his shirt, and he makes a sound low in his throat like he's been holding his breath all night and just found a reason to let it go.

His hand slides into my hair. My fists tighten in his shirt. Neither of us decides it; it just happens, the way turning to find him across a crowded room happened, the way running from him happened, like my body's been operating on some instinct that has nothing to do with what my brain thinks is smart or safe.

When our mouths meet, the burn under my ribs breaks wide open.

It isn't slow. It isn't careful. It's like something that's been straining on a leash all night finally gets let off it, and I kiss him back just as hard, both of us clumsy and too fast and completely unable to stop, his hands pulling me in like he's terrified I'll disappear again the second he lets go.

I can feel his heartbeat slamming against my palm, as wild as mine, and for one long, dizzy moment there's no ballroom, no cameras, no treaty, no fear, just heat and his hands and the sound he makes against my mouth like something in him just came apart completely.

I don't know how long it lasts. Long enough that I forget my own name, which feels almost funny, since he never got the chance to learn it in the first place.

Then the study door bangs open behind us, and a voice I don’t recognize, furious, cold, nothing like his mother's gentleness cuts through the room like a blade.

"Get away from her.” Adrien Conrad is standing in the doorway. And he isn't alone.