AMARIS
The summons came after dinner.
Not a knock on my door. Not Corvin appearing in a corridor. A message, carried by a staff girl who would not meet my eyes, that the Alpha requested the Luna in his study at eight.
Requested. The Luna. In his study.
I read the note twice and set it down on my vanity and stared at the woman in the mirror, and the woman in the mirror stared back with the face of someone who had been living on borrowed hours all week and had just been handed an invoice.
Well, I told her. We had a good run. Three whole days.
She did not laugh. She never laughs at my jokes. Rude.
I did not change my dress. I thought about it — stood in front of the wardrobe for a full minute running the calculation, formal armor versus deliberate casualness — and then I closed the wardrobe. There was no outfit for whatever this was. Pretending there might be felt like one lie too many in a week already sagging under the weight of them.
I walked to the study the long way.
