Page 22 of Invidia

This was one of the few times where I’d felt confident that I’d said the right thing. Tallulah looked up at me with the brightest smile I’d ever seen from her. It wasn’t quite the smile she gave everyone else, and I had no idea what that meant, but I hoarded it greedily all the same.

Every smile she gave me could be the last. Every day, we grew closer to her finding a Shade that she liked that was worthy of her.

And when that day came, I would be happy for her. Because no one deserved that more than Tallulah.

Chapter 7

“How did she even acquire all this?” Meera asked, untangling a necklace that had fallen down the side of what had been Verity’s dresser.

She’d moved out with the Shade she was… seeing? Curing? Taking pity on? Honestly, I couldn’t tell. But in her frantic rush to pack, she’d left plenty of small things behind that Meera and I were boxing up for her.

“I think half of Astrid’s supply runs were just Verity’s lists,” I laughed, warily reaching under the bed, not entirely sure what I was going to find under there.

Fortunately, it seemed to be mostly an assortment of clothes—primarily socks in every length and texture under the sun, though, they were all in various shades of pink.

“Do you think she’s happy?” Meera asked, her voice a little more subdued this time. “I know Damen said she was…”

“But would he really know?” I finished, having considered the same thing. “Verity has that flirty confidence that could probably convince anyone of anything.”

“I also don’t think she’d stay if she wasn’t,” Meera pointed out. “Verity is a force to be reckoned with.”

I hummed in agreement, a small wave of jealousy that I hated washing over me. I didn’t want to be jealous of my friend—I wanted to feel nothing but positive feelings where they were concerned. But the certainty with which Verity had made her choice to leave a couple of days ago, and the bemused way Damen had assured us that she didn’t regret her decision…

God, I just wanted that for myself. I wanted that certainty. I wanted everyone in the realm to know about it.

“Aren’t you going to go for your walk?” Meera asked suddenly. “You usually leave about this time.”

I swallowed tightly, glad Meera couldn’t scent my emotions. I could go. There was no one stopping me, except for the voice in my head that was suddenly and obnoxiously asking questions.

Questions like… what the fuck are you doing?

You want to fall in love. Is this how you’re going to find it? Hoping for a relationship with someone who doesn’t do relationships?

Are you actually keeping your feelings out of this like you said you would? Or are you already in too deep?

“I’m going to work on the curtains in the drawing room, actually. I really want to get them up, see what they look like.”

“Do you need a second pair of hands?”

Probably. “I think I’ll be okay.”

I didn’t want to inconvenience Meera, or force her to spend any more time indoors than she already had today. She was not an indoorsy kind of gal.

We set aside a couple of smaller boxes of things for Damen to take to Verity on his next visit before heading in separate directions. By midmorning, there was a very good chance Verity wouldn’t have even been awake yet, but the house still felt so much emptier without her presence.

I felt cold all over at the idea of Meera suddenly upping and leaving me too, and that was definitely how this was going to play out, since the only guy I liked was emotionally unavailable to me.

The curtains somewhat worked as stress relief—and the idea that the heavy velvet fabric would provide warmth and privacy, and make Elverston House feel more welcoming, was incredibly motivating.

But they just absolutely wouldn’t fall properly no matter what I did, and it would bother me every single moment for the rest of my life if they didn’t look right.

A slightly hysterical corner of my brain that I didn’t want to look too closely at was convinced that if only I could get the curtains right, all the other ills in my life would magically correct themselves, too.

“Those look great!” Meera said enthusiastically, coming to stand next to me while I examined them critically.

“They aren’t hanging properly.”

She shot me a bemused look. “Aren’t they? I doubt anyone will notice that but you. They look stunning. Such an improvement on what was there.”

---