Page 133 of Enchanted Kingdom
I glanced at her. “From precisely who you think.”
“What a prick,” Renna muttered from around her champagne glass.
Molly reached for my hand. “You look like you need truffles. Come on.”
I laughed. “Thanks, Molly.”
Gwen was nowhere to be found but eventually we did find Nara. We were content to stay amongst ourselves chatting and laughing until the dancing began. I noticed tons of stares and whispers while we stood there but forced myself to ignore it. If I had to be made a spectacle of, at least I had my friends and my favorite truffles.
An hour later, Renna took her turn dancing with Krewan while I stood in my line waiting to go last, as usual. Keir had been barely looking my direction, but I knew he had to seem enamored with more than just me, so for once, I didn’t really care. Like Krew said, tonight was a battle.
I was here and I was wearing this damned dress. I’d already won this round.
By the time it was my turn to dance, I was excited. Partly because I was feeling insolent and partly because I knew the evening was close to half over.
I bowed generously. “Your Grace.” I looked up at the bottom of my bow to see Keir grinning.
As we got into proper dance hold, he said, “That was so good I almost believed it.”
I looked him in the eyes and grinned. “If there was a person in this room I wished to give a genuine bow to, it would be you,” I offered.
His eyes drilled into mine. “Taking the flirting part of your role tonight to heart, I see?”
“Like either of us needs prompting with that.”
Keir laughed. “Fair point, but I am enjoying it regardless.”
As we finished up, I bowed low again, and rose to leave.
But Keir reached out and grabbed my wrist, in front of everyone.
“Yes?” I wasn’t sure what he was up to and couldn’t seem to find a breath.
He leaned in to whisper in my ear, “You’re doing great. And for the record I’ve wanted to deck four people so far for how they’ve treated you.”
I squeezed his hand on my wrist and then he was gone. I meandered through the watching crowd and returned to Renna as quickly as possible.
“Are we done yet?” she grumbled.
“We can only hope,” I muttered.
She wanted to walk around the room, per her antsy-self ritual, so we did just that.
On our second lap, I said softly, “You’re continuing to send quite the message. A Savaryn woman becoming best friends with the lone Nerede woman.”
“Ask me if I care,” Renna snapped. “Youareone of my best friends in this room. I could not care less which level you came from.”
I smiled at her. “I know that but thank you all the same.”
“We need to get the girls together for cards this week,” Renna offered. “I never thought I’d miss going to the common rooms.”
I nodded my agreement. “I do miss seeing you all every day. We went from every day, twice a day, to once a week. It’s bizarre.”
We turned to walk another lap. “Want to go annoy Krew just for the hell of it?”
I shrugged. “Why not.”
She smiled evilly. “He hates being interrupted. Haaaates it.”
