Page 96 of This Shattered Star

I watched him scan our surroundings. His scowl was so deep that I thought it might permanently carve itself into his face, much like the whorls decorating the walls and ceiling. “I’ve never been in this wing before.”

Pushing myself to stand, I shook out the lingering throb in my wrists. “I have.”

Three inquisitive stares latched onto me.

The wing of the castle I thought I’d never see again remained exactly as I’d left it. Spotless and devoid of any warmth. Not a single soul could be heard.

I said, plainly, and almost regrettably, “This ismywing. Well—not entirely mine of course. But my rooms are right over there.” Those inquisitive stares followed my finger as it pointed across the hall, towards the place that was both a sanctuary and a prison.

“Fifth door to the left,” I offered, and joined Theia by the window, who gaped at me like I had two heads instead of one. But just as I started tracing the outlines of rubble from the tower, the window clouded so heavily that anything beyond became imperceptible. Like a sudden blanket of night hung over each side, smothering even my reflection in the glass. “What could Maverick gain from doingthat?” No answer.

Something sour churned in my gut when I turned to face them again and realized they were locked in silent conversation thanks to Theia’s magic.

A bright light flickered to life in the back of my mind.Weapons.My room was chalk full of them. “Come and find me when you’re all done speaking. Thinking. However you call it.” Without waiting for their response, I jogged towards my rooms. Their scrambling footfalls echoed behind me.

“We just weren’t expecting your rooms to behere,” Theia finally explained, but I only partially listened.

I dove underneath my bed, fingers hooking on the crate that held almost every one of my knives and swords, and slid it across the floor so I could inspect the contents. They were all accounted for. With both hands resting on the sides of the crate, I sagged with relief.

Diana hadn’t taken them. Hadn’t done anything to my room—at least on surface level—since all was in its place. Dust collected along the rim of an unfinished teacup waiting alongside its porcelain pot on the small dining table. Open cosmetics still littered the surface of my vanity. And the clothes I’d changed out of when I arrived back from taking that man’s life still lay crumpled at the foot of the bed—mybed. Its creamy white sheets beckoned. So did the mountain of satin pillows, and the claw-footed tub that sat in my bathing chambers.

“Diana put me in this wing because it is furthest from all the others. Not that I mind,” I explained absentmindedly, deftly strapping two of my daggers across my left thigh—along with Kodhan’s—and another around my right bicep. Like inserting pieces back into an incomplete puzzle. Kodhan tracked my every movement, his stare scalding hot.

Armed to the teeth, I finally felt whole again.

I met Kodhan’s stare without flinching. Silently dared him to say anything about the relief that lay openly in my face—about what he’d seen me do with these very same blades during that first night in the alley.

He merely smiled, the slow, devilish curve of his lips tackling the defenses I’d thrown up. It shredded them to pieces until I felt bare once more—but not the kind of bare that had me reaching for weapons. The kind that weakened my knees. The kind that had my blood warming to an almost painful degree.

I see you,that smile seemed to say. And a challenge of his own flared in those jade eyes.

He could have crushed my lungs with his fist, and it would have given the same effect.

Theia squealed suddenly from inside my dressing room. Kodhan and Brannon whirled, magic at the ready. She pranced out holding one of the most expensive gowns I owned. The red, gauzy chiffon whispered across the floor as she held it up toher chest. “I wouldwantthe furthest wing in the castle if I had dresses likethis. People risk their lives to steal dresses of this quality, you know.”

The three of us loosed a collective sigh.

I slid my dagger back into its sheath at my thigh. Not that I remembered palming it.

She vanished into the dressing chamber again and reappeared seconds later holding up a slim, black down with aquamarine gems encrusted into the neckline. They speckled down the bodice, which curved low at the back. Beaming, she held it out, shaking it for emphasis. “You have a target on your back, Eloise. I’ll come back for these whether you want to part with them or not.”

Despite the threat, a laugh bubbled up my throat. “You’ll have to fight me, then. It took me ages to collect those. Not to mention how difficult it was to stave off an army’s worth of court ladies from running off with them before I could. They are a different sort of vicious.”

Theia muttered what I presumed to be another promise to rob me under her breath, returning into the dressing rooms to hang the dress back where it belonged.

Kodhan glanced at my vanity. At the rings and necklaces hanging from the jewelry stand. Rubies, sapphires, and crystals winked back at him. “Seems like you were well off.”

Were.Like the life I lived the last time I sat on that chair mere days ago was completely different from the one I lived now. And in truth, it was. That chapter had been firmly closed.

I now stood before an endless sea of blank pages, waiting to be filled. Thrilling as it was, the uncertainty of it all made me more nervous than I cared to admit. A celestial quill remained poised above my head, waiting to etch the ink of my fate.

But I knew what I wanted. What I deserved. I would scrawl it out, in my own blood, if I had to.

Peering at my reflection through the vanity mirror, I said, “Money is money. The right amount can buy anything, even when it’s coming from me.” Even when shopkeepers cringed each time I stepped foot in their boutiques. “I felt guilty at first. Spending so much silver and gold knowing how I’d would up with it in the first place. But then I remembered Diana could take it all away as fast as she’d given it to me.” I turned away from the mirror. “So I spent every coin. She can’t take back what no longer exists. Or anything consideredsecond-hand,which, technically, would be anything in my possession.”

He and Brannon shared a look. “I didn’t know Diana paid you.”

“She didn’t always.” I fiddled with the dagger strapped around my arm, loosening, then retightening its sheath. “It depended on the name she gave me. Though some of the things in here are from her directly. For events she would force me to attend. She wasn’t always satisfied with what I got for myself.”