Give Me by L. K. Rigel Page B

Marion patted her arm. “Only…”
    Lilith knew exactly what she was thinking. He deserved someone like—she hated the thought—but someone rich and classy, beautiful and well-born. Someone like Jenna Sarumen.
    “Only I’d hate for you to break his heart,” Marion said. “He’s more sensitive than he lets on.”
    “That’s your worry?” Lilith said. She threw her arms around Marion in a big hug.
    “You won’t be with us long, you know.”
    “Great gods.” Lilith let Marion go. “Countess Dumnos. I didn’t notice it before.”
    In the photograph on the wall behind Marion, Bausiney’s mother stared not into the camera but past it, her eyes wide and soft, her lips slightly parted, unreservedly available to the one behind the lens. “She’s in love.”
    “No,” Marion said. “A stranger took that picture. A street vendor, she told me. But she does look…entranced.”
    “Not a complete stranger, I don’t think.” But whoever took that picture, it wasn’t Lord Dumnos. “She looks positively enchanted.”



8
Hobnobbing
    S ince Cade was a kid, he could always tell when Moo wasn’t happy. This last week she’d been all over the map, giddy and nervous. Even afraid, which was disturbing; nothing scared Moo. But up or down, she hadn’t been happy since the Handover was announced. Maybe others couldn’t tell, but her natural cheerfulness had been an act. He and Ian were both worried about her.
    This morning she wasn’t afraid. She was upset. She’d knocked about, making too much noise, her signal that she had something to say and Cade had bloody well better hear it. He’d come down to the kitchen and sat at the worktable bench with his back to the old open bread oven and waited for her to say what was wrong.
    She’d made a fire in the oven and put the kettle on—as ever, making things cozy. She rinsed out the gruel jug at the sink, keeping her back to him and her shoulders rigid. The biggest tell was her silence. Moo always had plenty to say when she came up the hill with Dad’s breakfast, and she hadn’t said any of it.
    The light finally dawned: his aunt was upset with him .
    “Ian found the liver all right then?” That would get her going.
    She sniffed but didn’t take the bait. Silently she dried the jug and dropped it into her bag. At last, she relented.
    “I just don’t know why you have to date one of my guests.”
    “That’s what this is about?” He relaxed. “You’ve never cared about that before. And it’s not a date.” That wasn’t exactly true. With everything he had in mind for tonight, it was a date.
    “She’ll be gone after the ceremony tomorrow.” The kettle started to whistle, and Moo automatically went about making tea. He preferred coffee but had never said. It would break her heart.
    “She didn’t come to Dumnos for that business. Maybe she won’t be gone.”
    “And maybe she’s the one. Did you think of that? Don’t give your heart to someone who can never share hers.”
    “You don’t buy into that bollocks.”
    “Maybe I don’t think it is bollocks.” She set milk and sugar in front of him. He was on his own there. “Maybe I’ve learned a few things in the years I’ve been going out to Glimmer Cottage when no one else would.”
    He shuddered. “There’s something horrible about that place.” Sometimes, especially when he was younger and especially when the moon was full, he’d had the strong sense of the wyrding woman up on her roof, thinking about him.
    “She puts on a glamour to make people forget it’s there.”
    “Until now.” He’d never forgotten it was there. Not one day.
    “Don’t worry. You won’t have to cross the threshold. I’ll maitre d’ the ceremony.”
    “You’re a real enthusiast for this Handover scheme.”
    He’d never had the slightest desire to see Glimmer Cottage. He’d wager it smelled as rotten as it looked. As for the Handover, he went along with it like he went along with Christmas and expected the