Page 66 of A City of Flames

“We hope to be back before the ball—” he begins, but another man, flipping a knife as he saunters past, calls for him to follow.

Lorcan’s expression is tentative as he looks over my head then at me. “Goodbye, Nara,” he whispers it out like he knows he doesn’t want to leave, and I understand this is what a venator does, what we all have to do at one point.

“I have to leave, Lía,” My father’s words push through once more, to when he’d lower himself to his knees so that he could meet my height. “Try not to get into too much trouble.” He’d chuckle with all the brightness in his heart, ruffling my hair.

“Try not to be too adventurous while I’m gone,” Lorcan says, and I blink again as I focus on his lips, stretching into a smile, one I can’t reciprocate.

He leans in, but I turn my cheek just as his lips brush my skin, and he lets them linger there—my breath heavy with the resemblances of the past and now. Lorcan must think I didn’t want a kiss, that I didn’t want anything as he rears back, and I don’t look at him as he walks off.

* * *

It has only been a matter of hours since Lorcan left. I’d trained, listened to Rydan explain why he was the greatest, and then Link asking me questions over Illias. It’s the most I’d seen him speak, but with my head elsewhere, it was hard to act enthusiastic.

“So, are you going to tell me about this Lorcan guy?” Idris probes as we stroll through the streets of Chrysos. After explaining how they were to come with me to the Noctura ball, Illias was the one to look the most excited out of the three. Idris’s grunt of annoyance told me he’d despised the idea of a ball.

I shrug, staring down at the floor, hearing Illias and Iker going at it far ahead of us. “What is there to tell?”

Pleas from the side make my head snap to the left. A venator and a man in tattered robes clasping his hands together as he says, “I beg of you, just until next week, I promise to have the money.”

I frown solemnly. It’s the day of tax collections. We’d experienced that before, the fear of never having enough to pay, the worry of being left on the streets or far worse.

“I know you, Nara,” Idris cuts in, interrupting my stare at the man. “Illias knows you, Iker... well, he knows nothing most of the time, but the three of us can tell something is going on that you won’t say.”

My sunken mood was likely the giveaway when I met up with my brothers in the city today. Expelling a breath, I look up. “Idris, whenever I’ve told you something in the past, you’ve either argued with me for it or given me the silent treatment. Why should I tell you about a guy you’ll likely want to scowl at, even if I mentioned it was just a friendship?”

My raised brow makes him frown. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“You would, and you know it.”

He rolls his eyes, and I walk further along as Iker and Illias make their way towards us. “Look, Nara,” Idris sighs and I turn with curious eyes. “I want you to know that even if he was more than a friend or—” he finds it hard to say the next word “—that you are in love with him, I’m always going to be there for you. Feelings such as that aren’t supposed to be battled alone.”

He doesn’t see it, but for a second, my eyes go round, not for the use of the word love but because I’d not expected for him to say it so... achingly. Once, he’d had a lover but too soon was she taken by an illness that took my mother as well.

“I only want what’s best for you,” he goes on, his blue gaze like mine, glosses over. “And sometimes my judgment when it comes to people can get in the way of that.”

Idris has never spoken this way to me. We’ve always argued instead, and stunned, I attempt to respond. But Iker and Illias reach us, and I spot Freya, shouting my name from the other side of the street.

She darts our way, her cloak catching between people as I smile, saying, “Freya! I never introduced you to—”

“Solaris, don’t tell me these are your brothers?” She pants, placing her hands onto her hips and smiling at each one of them. Then with a squint of her eyes, she starts pointing, “Iker, Illias, and—” Her head tilts for a second. “Idris.”

Surprised she’d guessed them all right, I nod before her smile widens as she says, “Oh, I’ve heard such wondrous things about you all! I know Iker loves to write. I once attempted that though sadly, I’m an awful writer, and then I know that Illias is an artist and—”

“Are you always this excitable?” Idris questions stoically, and I inhale a breath, mentally cursing him for how abrupt he is, though often that is me too.

Freya clears her throat, the smile disappearing from her lips as she stares him down and turns to me. “I see what you meant by grumpy.”

I smother a laugh, and despite Idris’s disapproving gaze on her, Freya doesn’t yield. She raises her brows in a challenge, keeping her chin up.

Idris narrows his eyes, baffled but it glistens with something else, something unexpected just as Iker snickers. “It’s true, Idris is—”

“Misty!”

My smile wipes itself off my face and eyes grow wide.

No, no, no.

Begging that it’s my mind playing tricks on me even if I know it is not once everyone looks behind them, my stomach bubbles with confusion and shock.

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