Chapter 38

He walked out of the long room without looking back, and the door closed behind him with a small, polite click, and nobody at the table moved.

Nana Odette wrapped my hand in a napkin and pressed down hard with both of hers. Her mouth was a thin line. She didn’t say anything to me. She said, to the room in general, “Well. More tea, I think,” in a voice that could have stripped paint, and the Seelie secretary actually jumped.

Rhys got up.

He came the length of the table, and for a moment I thought he was coming to me. He stopped behind my chair. I felt him there, the warm, steady weight of him that had stood at my back through my first Hearth and every one since. Then he bent and said, very low, so that only I could hear:

“I’m sorry, Luna.”

And he went out after Caspian.

***

Nana took me to the kitchen and made me sit on the stool by the range while she cleaned the cut, because the kitchen was hers and no one came into it without her leave. Sh