Chapter 11: Tilda

I have been naked in front of a lot of people in my dreams, but never my husband's sister.

I grabbed my shirt off the stone and pulled it over my head wrong side out.

Lachlan was already between us, all the way, one arm across my chest.

"Tilda," he said. "Turn around."

"I've seen you naked before. We shared a nursery."

"Not her."

"Fine."

She rolled onto her back in the water, silver hair fanning around her, and stared at the rafters.

"Congratulations, by the way," she said. "It took you long enough."

"Husband," I said.

Nobody answered.

"She said wife. You said husband. I'm going to need someone to start talking."

Lachlan closed his eyes.

"Marnie," he said. "I was going to tell you."

"When?"

"After."

"After what?"

"After you had told me you would stay."

I got my jeans on, and it took three tries.

Then I sat down on the stone step with my arms around my knees.

I looked at the woman in the water and at the man beside me, who wore his legs and nothing else.

He looked miserable.

"Tilda," I said. "I'm Marnie. I'd like you to explain it to me. Slowly. In English."

"Gladly."

She flipped onto her stomach and rested her chin on her fists.

"My brother is a Rook," she said. "Rooks are an old house. We keep our song, our tears and our scales for the person we choose."

"We give each of them once. Our scales are our promises, and the fourth one, given and kept, is a marriage."

"Kept."

"If you throw it back in his face, it's a refusal. If you keep it, you've said yes." She raised an eyebrow. "You kept four."

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