Havenfall (Havenfall #1)(14)
I slip behind the bar and pour myself a glass of wine, figuring I might as well get started on that whole courage thing, when—
“Maddie!”
My uncle’s voice to my left. I stop and turn as he emerges out of the crowd—the Heiress at his side.
Despite the press of the crowded room, I can almost see the distance between them, like a block of glass. Marcus is short and trim with an easy manner, curly black hair and beard, and kind eyes. He’s always gotten along with everyone, especially the Heiress, despite how mismatched they look at the moment—him in his outdated suit and her dressed like some kind of a dispossessed dowager empress. Tonight the Heiress wears a velvet gown. Her silver braid circles her head like a crown. Her expression is especially cool and untouchable. By contrast, Marcus’s hair sticks up especially high, and I know that means he’s been nervously running his hands through it.
“Maddie,” Marcus says again, giving me a side hug, which is all he has room for in the crowded room. “I just talked to your dad on the phone. I’m so sorry for not picking you up, I completely missed your text—”
“No problem,” I interrupt, hugging him back. “Someone gave me a ride.” I pull back and smile at him. “Thanks for letting me stay.”
One side of his mouth quirks up. “Well, you’re always welcome.”
I know he probably feels a little guilty for enabling my truancy, but Marcus understands that Havenfall is my world. That, at least, I can count on.
We part and I turn to the Heiress, not sure what to say or how to act. Should I ignore the obvious tension between them? Should I just pretend everything is normal?
“Madeline.” The Heiress greets me by my full name as always, giving me a smile that’s as warm as ever despite the chilliness between her and Marcus.
So I guess that’s where we’re at.
“Just the woman I was hoping to see,” she says kindly.
“Lady Heiress.” I pull a wineglass from the cupboard behind me, making sure to get one of the fancy ones with the gold rims. “May I make you a drink?”
“Why, my dear girl, I haven’t seen you in far too long. We have much to catch up on.” She clasps my arm briefly, her plump hand dry and warm. “But, yes, a spot of champagne, if you please.”
The Heiress claims that she’s writing a history of Havenfall. Every year she invites people from all three worlds up to her suite for tea and pastries and long, meticulous interviews. She must have an encyclopedia’s worth of material by now. But no one’s read any of her supposed epic, and there are whispers that it’s all nonsense, that the notes she takes are air and fluff.
If she’s not writing, though, what is she doing here, in our world? And why did she come back to Havenfall?
As the trio of musicians kicks into a faster number, I hide the disappointment that Brekken’s still not here and I pass her the champagne.
“How’s the book coming?” I try to sound casual and pretend I don’t notice anything wrong between her and Marcus.
She gives the same answer she always gives, an elegant shrug and a little sigh. But then, just when I’ve opened my mouth to reply, she goes on.
“There are so many worlds that have been closed off forever,” she says sadly. “How am I to write about all the Adjacent Realms when their citizens aren’t here for me to speak to?”
A chill settles over my skin. The Heiress told me once how beautiful the Solarian delegates were said to have been, whether in human form to parley with everyone else at the summit, or in their beast forms, running through the mountains under the moonlight. She said the Solarians were the most free of all the peoples, and I’ll never forgot the raw curiosity I heard in her voice.
“But some worlds are better closed off,” I point out. “You don’t have to speak to Solarians to know why their door was destroyed …”
Because the victims—Fiorden, Byrnisian, human—remember. I remember.
Marcus stiffens beside us. He casts me a wary look that warns, Watch what you say.
The Heiress flaps her hand, like it goes without saying, as a Byrnisian couple in chainmail-like silver tunics pass close by. It’s frowned upon even to speak of Solaria here at Havenfall, as if putting the word out in the air will summon the real monsters. So I have to keep my true thoughts at bay, even when I will never—can never—forget my brother died at the claws of someone from that cursed world. I wonder again how many there are still on Earth, hidden shapeshifters, preying on human souls.
A short, uncomfortable silence passes, and then the Heiress sighs again and looks out over the crowd. “Of course,” she says. “The less said of Solarians, the better.”
I still feel cold. I want to go find Brekken, but you can’t just walk away from the Heiress, not without being dismissed.
“What happened last summer?” I blurt out. “Why did you leave?”
Even though he’s pretending not to listen, Marcus frowns, and the woman turns her steely eyes on me. It takes effort to stand still and not apologize or walk back my question.
“Madeline,” she says evenly. Her face is blank, her voice inflectionless, but what she says next sends a current of apprehension through me. “Much like Solarians, sometimes the past is better kept locked away.”