Page 82 of The Nightbound Soldier

I shake my head. “I’m busy peeling potatoes.”Slash, slash, slash.“You can read it if you want.”

Evie opens the letter. “Augusta is saying the invitations to the winter wedding will be sent out tomorrow.”

I snort, completely unladylike, and it feels so good that I snort again, like a piglet at the local market. “As if I don’t know when the invitations for the grand event get sent. I invented those deadlines. Pfft.”

Augusta invited me to the Winter Court. In essence, she used me too, and I’m upset with her as well.

“She says:andas you know, you are required to attend, for I am the Unseelie queen and I demand it.”

I stop trying to murder the vegetable.

Julie gasps and snatches the letter from Evie. “Let me see.” She nods. “Oh, Augusta is serious this time. She’s using her position to request your presence.”

I use a pink cloth to wipe my hand dry, then extend my hand toward Julie.

She surrenders the letter, and I read it. “She signed it as a fate.” The previous times she wrote, she signed asyour friend, but since I haven’t been responding, she’s using other measures at her disposal.

“Uh-oh,” Evie says. “We better start packing.”

“Pfft.” I scrunch up the letter and blow onto it in my hands. It disappears.

Evie bites her lip.

Julie picks up her knitting.

“I’ll write back this time. Say I’m sick.”

“The thing is, Fleur, this is the wedding of a king,” Evie says. “He might find it offensive if you don’t show up.”

I chuckle. “Aamako used me the way he’d use any other weapon in his arsenal. He cares not if I show up.”

“Augusta can’t do this without you, Fleur. The accommodations and preparation for the wedding this size—”

“I sent her Taliant. She’ll have a wedding to rival my brother’s.”

“You don’t have to go,” Julie says. The needle slips and pricks her finger. Blood wells up, as does Julie’s weak magic, and she says, “You don’t have to go, but you should know that your general is unwell.”

I sit up. “What do you mean?”

“He’s…fading.” Her magic is fading as well, her eyes losing the cloud that seems to cover them as Julie sees things happening in other places of the world. Refocusing, she blinks, then looks around the table. “What did I say?”

Sometimes Julie is fully aware of what she sees when she stands with us; other times, she describes it as a flashing dream that she loses touch with when she leaves. I hope this is the former type, though it doesn’t look promising.

“You saw my general and said he’s fading.”

Julie frowns and rubs the drop of blood between her fingers. “He’s trying to eat.”

“Eat?” It takes me a moment to understand what Julie is saying, then another moment to realize Nottuza must eat, and that his food is blood. Fae blood, and much like the fae when they enjoy meals, the vampires like to enjoy theirs. Nottuza, with his good looks and that dark, brooding, grumpy, dominant demeanor, could have Unseelie females tripping over themselves to indulge him.

“It’s feed,” I say. “Vampires feed. They don’t eat.”

“He calls it eating,” Evie says.

“How do you know?”

Evie blushes. “Ledger and Leroy told me.”

“Both of them,” Julie and I say at the same time.

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