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“That sounded productive.”
I looked up to find Garrick leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed, expression carefully neutral.
“How much did you hear?”
“Enough to know you're both being stubborn asses.” He pushed off the wall, moving closer. “Though for what it's worth, I think you're right about Constance. She'd make you miserable.”
“Tell that to my father.”
“Your father,” Garrick said carefully, “isn't exactly in a position to give rational relationship advice. The man hasn't moved past your mother’s death.”
“He thinks I'm compromised,” I said quietly. “That caring about anything besides the mission makes me weak.”
“Are you? Compromised?”
I thought about Lily. The way she'd looked at that arrested Weaver with genuine horror. Her grief when she spoke of her family. The intelligence in her eyes when she questioned everything I'd been taught to accept as truth.
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But if questioning makes me compromised, then I've been compromised for a while now.”
Garrick was quiet for a moment. “Ashby's been reassigned. Your father agreed to postpone his. . . unraveling. Said we needed every hunter available for something coming up.”
Relief washed through me. “Good. That's. . . that's good.”
“Hopefully this buys him time permanently, if he's smart enough to stay useful.” Garrick studied me. “But August? Your father is watching you now. Really watching. Whatever you're doing with Red, whatever you're planning, be careful. He's looking for excuses to prove you're too far gone.”
“I'm not planning anything.”
“Yes, you are.” Garrick was equal parts amused and concerned. “You cannot tell me she’s not getting to you. She's beautiful, she's clever, she challenges you at every turn.”
“That doesn't mean much.”
“And you've been different since she arrived. Questioning things. Pushing back against your father. Refusing to marry Constance because suddenly 'boring' matters to you.” He raised an eyebrow. “You might not see it yet. Or you're just too stubborn to admit it. But your father sees it. And that terrifies him.”
“So, what do I do?”
“You make a choice.” Garrick's expression turned serious. “Either you commit fully to your father's path—marry Constance or someone like her, stop questioning, be the perfect weapon he wants you to be. Or you accept that you're becoming someone different and deal with the consequences.”
“That's not much of a choice.”
“No,” Garrick agreed. “But it's the only ones you've got.”
He clapped my shoulder. “Go home. Check on your houseguest. And August? Whatever you decide about Red, decide it quickly. Because your father will make the decision for you if you wait too long.”
Then he was gone, leaving me alone in the corridor with the weight of impossible choices—and the faint, dangerous thought that my father was right.
The house was quiet when I returned, save for the faint murmur of voices from the morning room. I had expected to find Adeline alone, irritated with the task I had saddled her with. Instead, I found her and Lily in conversation.
Lily sat in one of the armchairs, legs tucked beneath her, tea cradled between her hands as if she belonged there.
The sight stopped me cold.
She shouldn’t look like she belonged anywhere near my life. Yet there she was, fitting into the space as if it had been waiting for her all along. As if the entire world had shifted slightly off its axis the moment she arrived.
I stayed in the doorway, unseen, watching.
Adeline sat opposite Lily. I caught only fragments. Adeline’s pointed questions. Lily’s quick, wry replies. Yet the cadence told its own story. Conversation shouldn’t have flowed at all between those two: Adeline, all precision and guarded edges, rarely bothered with pleasantries, and Lily, the outsider she had every reason to distrust.
But there they were, volleying words as though they’d struck an uneasy truce, Adeline’s sharp scrutiny met by Lily’s nimble deflections. It was too. . . comfortable. Adeline trusted almost no one, yet she hadn’t shut Lily down. And that realization unnerved me far more than silence ever could.
