The Fake Dating Spell novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Stable

The stable behind the Guild smelled of hay and horse and wet leather.

Wynne walked in with one lantern and a thread of gold stretching back through the door behind her.

Nine paces back, in the shadow of the yard wall, Tavish stood with his arms crossed and his jaw like stone.

"Nine paces," he had said. "Not one more. If he lays a hand on you, I'm there."

"He won't."

"Then it won't matter."

Lorcan waited by the last stall in his good blue cloak, holding his bandaged hand against his chest.

He looked tired and sad and very handsome.

It was the look that used to make her give him the last of her supper.

"You came," he said.

"What do you need to tell me?"

"That I made a mistake."

He stepped closer.

"I was frightened, Wynne. The Chancellor has made it plain what my career needs. I had to choose a bride who could protect my work."

"Your work."

"Our work. Yes. Ours." He gave a rueful smile. "You are the best mind I have ever met. You always were."

She waited for the old warmth to rise in her chest.

It always had.

Every time he said her name in that tone, something under her ribs would pull toward him.

She stood in the lantern light and felt nothing at all.

Not anger, not longing, not even the ache of the old hurt.

Only a flat, strange stillness, like a room after a bell has stopped ringing.

"Say the rest," she said.

"Leave the Warden. Come back to the tower."

He took a breath.

"I'll break it off with Sabine in the spring, when my place is safe. You'll have your name on every spell. I swear it."

"In the spring."

"And until the spring?"

"You would keep your ring, and your room, and you would write."

He reached out and took her hand, the one with the ring.

He turned the grey stone with his thumb.

"As you have always done."

It was exactly like being touched by a stranger.

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