Page 35 of Sweetling
“The library I did to my own tastes,” he said, as if having one room to his own taste was enough. And she could definitely see him in the room—all the rich fabrics and dark colors were exactly what the fae seemed to favor. But…it was his house.
Molly shrugged and avoided his question and gaze by wandering through the empty room. When she came to the large set of windows that looked out onto the forest, she turned.
Soaked in light, Molly truly looked at the room.
White is too plain. Gray too dour. Red would overwhelm the room, and gold would wash it out.
“Green,” she whispered more than said.
A slow smile spread across Allarion’s face, and Molly swore those dark eyes watched her with an avaricious sort of…pride.
“Sage?” he asked. “Seafoam?”
Molly shook her head. “No, a dark green. Like the forest outside.”
The shutters rattled, widening Allarion’s smile.
Without so much as a blink, all that fae focus directed at her, and as though she had passed some sort of test, he said softly, “Perfect.”
Why he cared so much about her opinion, Molly couldn’t quite figure out. If she let herself think about it, she supposed it might be good that he was asking for the opinion of the person he wanted to share the house with. It was another point to his being serious about the handfasting, making it permanent.
He was trying to make the house tobothof their tastes.
The revelation was a terrifying one, which was why Molly didn’t let herself think of these things much. That way lay danger, and she’d had far too much danger in her life already.
She just had to wait for the right vase.
Molly wanted to take something with her when she left—ideally something to sell in the next town for some pocket money to get her where she wanted to go. Wherever that was. There just hadn’t been the right vase yet. All of them were either too large or too heavy—porcelain, colored glass, smooth marble, they’d all fetch a pretty price, but they’d all slow her escape down. She needed just the right one, not too big, not too delicate, not too heavy. Something nice but nottoonice—nothing that would make a shopkeeper think she’d stolen it. Even if she had.
Until then, she supposed she just had to content herself with watching Allarion in his strange renovation of his sentient house.
Yet, when she unlocked and opened her bedchamber door on that seventh morning, she found no flowers nor vase. The corridor was empty save the shafts of light filtering in from the wall of windows.
The house itself was quieter than Molly had ever heard it.
Strange.
Molly crept from her room, wondering if something had happened. Nothing looked amiss, but it felt…different.
The kitchen yielded no clues, nor did the library or study, with its newly finished floor. After a quiet breakfast, Molly ventured outside, skirting the house to see if she could spot him on the roof.
Peering up, she tried multiple angles but couldn’t see him. She didn’t always when he was up there replacing shingles, but she certainlyheardhim, and today, the estate was quiet. Quiet but not exactly peaceful. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but even outside, the wrongness of something lingered in the crisp autumn air.
A shiver skated up Molly’s spine, leaving an eruption of gooseflesh in its wake.
A threatening nicker echoed behind her.
Turning slowly, carefully, Molly came face to face with the unicorn. Bellarand.
He stood not five paces away, his great head lowered so those crimson eyes were level with her own. The wicked point of his long horn bobbed in the air, only a single lunge away from piercing her vulnerable throat.
Molly swallowed hard and held up her hands.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen the master of the house.”
A low rumble emanated from the unicorn’s thick neck, and he flicked his black tail.
She didn’t know why she felt defensive all of a sudden, nor why she felt the need to insist, “I wasn’t running away, I was looking for Allarion.”
