Arrival of the Traveler (Waldgrave Book 1)
Page 34
“Devin is just a friend. That’s all.” She shook her head.
Griffin tilted his head slightly. His expression was still very serious. “That’s not what he thinks.”
“Oh…whatever. Sure, Griffin.”
Griffin opened the door and gestured her out into the hall. He walked her down a hallway to the left, made a sharp turn, and Lena found herself at a dead end. Griffin opened a door to what was little more than a large closet, but there was a bed.
“It’s not much. I think Master Daray used to keep his personal attendant in here, but it should do, since you’re obsessed with helping the less worthy. It goes without saying that you’re not sleeping here until tomorrow night, after you’ve run the idea by Howard, I take it?”
Lena nodded. “That would be correct. Thanks, Griffin.”
“You’re welcome. I’m sure my mother won’t object to sharing her bathroom, either.”
Lena wasn’t entirely sure he was right, but she had seemed significantly calmer without Darius around. “Okay. Thanks.”
But Griffin continued to stand there.
“What?”
Griffin was suddenly too serious, but he was smiling a little. “We’re going to set some ground rules now that Council is back in session. Are you going to get jealous again if I try to live my life the way I want to?”
Lena studied him. She wasn’t sure if he was teasing her or not. Without saying it, they both knew he was talking about the incident involving Bianca Channing the previous year. “I wasn’t jealous of her.”
Griffin almost laughed. “Sure you weren’t. But if you’re going to date…those types, then I think I should be allowed to explore my own options.”
“We’re not dating.” Lena narrowed her eyes.
Griffin furrowed his brow. “Then you want me to wait…”
“Yes. No! I meant no. I mean, that’s not what I said, I was just asserting the fact we’re not dating. He and I. Or you and I. None of the three of us are dating. Just friends, now and always. Clear?” Lena felt her face go red. She had said something that she knew Griffin would interpret as a Freudian slip, if he had caught it.
Griffin gave her a sidelong glance. “No.”
Lena nodded curtly. “Then date whoever you want to. I don’t care.”
She did care, but not the way she expected to. Probably not the way he expected, either. After a great deal of introspection, she had decided she cared merely because she liked the attention; not because she liked him that way. It was because there was so little to do around Waldgrave, and Griffin provided entertainment, and if he started being interested in anyone else, her distraction of having him around to entertain her was done for. For this reason she had a vested interest in his remaining single—not for any other reason.
Griffin took a deep breath, let it out, and nodded. “Well. Goodnight then.”
He turned and started back down the hallway. Lena watched him go, then walked into her new room; it dawned on her that she had left her overnight supplies in Mrs. Corbett’s room. She grabbed the pillowcase off the foot of the bed and tied it around the outside door handle to be sure she could find the room again, retrieved her things, and came back. She made up the bed, read for an hour, and then fell asleep.
“And you play cards with them? Lena, please tell me you win…”
A week later, the Council had worn itself out fighting and a vote had been taken to take a day off. Lena was using her spare time to talk to Hesper and play with Maren, who was much louder than she ever remembered Darius being, but was still filling the gap of familiarity that she missed since his departure. Maren was still so little, but Hesper was trying to get her to participate in what she called “turtle time”—laying her on her belly so she would learn to hold her head up.
“Well, yeah. It’s fun really. You should play with us sometime.” Lena knew that Hesper would reject the offer; she didn’t seem like the poker-playing type.
“I don’t play cards. It’s too easy…You don’t think it’s easy? Can’t you tell what everyone else has?” Hesper looked concerned.
“No…” Lena replied, feeling stupid.
“Well…That’s the reason most Silenti don’t play each other. You might as well be playing with exposed cards. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how some of the families got started financially—playing humans. They wouldn’t have a chance.”
Maren’s big, quizzical eyes explored the room. They eventually landed on a bottle half sticking out of her diaper bag and she whined until Hesper got it for her and flipped her over on her back so she could drink it.
Hesper changed the subject. “So how are the meetings going, then?”
Lena sighed. She hated going to Council; it made her depressed. The idea that Griffin could have been bringing the portal back had inspired enough votes to garner Council time to decide on the reinstatement of current travel policy or on the instatement of a new policy.
Under the new policy, members of the Daray house, and descendants of it, would not be allowed to leave the property at all unless if extreme extenuating circumstances demanded it—and even then, if somebody had to be rushed to the hospital the request would have to meet with emergency Council approval first. There would be no guests outside of yearly Council meetings, either. Lena was fairly sure the new measures wouldn’t pass, but all the same it was going to be a closer vote than she preferred. It was getting ridiculous; she was never going to leave Waldgrave again.
On top of it all, Howard had vetoed her plan to sleep in the small room on the fourth floor because he was afraid other Council members wouldn’t like the idea. Lena was bunking in Ava’s room on the second floor until Council was out, and she really wasn’t happy about it.
Hesper gave her a sympathetic look. “Surely it can’t be that bad. I mean, your biggest deal two years ago was being sure you didn’t marry Griffin, right? And you managed to make it happen. You can do this too, and a few years from now you’ll think you were stupid to worry about this.”
The way they argued in that room, Lena doubted it. People were too stuck in their own ideas, and no one was willing to budge for the sake compromise. Too much was at stake on all sides. She looked down at Maren, so blissfully unaware of the world she was growing up in, and how imperfect people had made it.
“It’s all because of that stupid portal, Hesper. It probably doesn’t even exist, and people are all up in arms about it anyway.”
“Hey now, that happened because of the normal side of your blood, remember? A lot of the New Faith believers never took any of the stories seriously until your mom found it and your other grandfather confirmed it—he was an expert, after all. I do agree it’s sad that Griffin’s caused such a panic, though. Can you imagine if he actually had brought the portal back here? People would really be freaking out then.” She laughed.
Lena stretched out on the carpet next to Maren. What if he had brought the portal back, and the Council had intercepted it? Daray would have been furious, Griffin would probably suffer some sort of house arrest punishment, the New Faith believers would seize control of it in the ultimate checkmate…and there wouldn’t be any reason to hold the Daray family hostage anymore. If the portal were under lock and key, Lena wouldn’t have to be.
She sat bolt upright, as if she were a puppet on an invisible string. Hesper stopped laughing. “What is it?”
“I found a way to make them trust me.” Lena smiled. “I’m going to find it. I’m going to find it and bring it back.”
Deception of the Magician, Waldgrave Part 2 is available now!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A.L. Tyler lives in Colorado, with her husband, two cats, and three turtles. When she isn’t writing or creating art, she’s probably hiding in the garden.
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bsp; To find Addisyn, or more of her books, start by going to her blog: http://addisynltyler.blogspot.com/.