Rene honestly couldn’t think of an excuse, so she didn’t bother trying to make one. Her thoughts were…not necessarily with the Dazuz family anyway.

She should’ve kept it to herself. Talking about first love just made her wonder if second love could be any better. She worried she might have risked it too early—feared the chance that she couldn’t try again. Sometime during the walk, however, Rene convinced herself to put some trust in Adelinde.

She would hear from her no matter her ultimate response. She knew that much.

Rene entered the Dazuz mansion the back way, as per usual. She opened the door just to find Elina standing inside with a frown and her arms crossed. Her overall composure—how she held herself like she was better—barely changed at all whenever they talked.

“Errands only take thirty minutes at most,” Elina pointed out. “Not two hours at least. You don’t even have anything.”

Rene just sighed and moved past her, ignoring any taunting. She was only going to explain herself once—Elina could eavesdrop if she was so inclined.

She made her way to Lord Dazuz’s study; Leo noticed she walked past, then stepped in line behind his sister. Any staff they passed made no comment, being used to the procession by now. It happened every other time Lord Dazuz sent her out to check on Matteo. At least she didn’t have to go through the entire process whenever she came back on her own.

When she reached the study, she paused and knocked on the door. Lord Dazuz answered after a second.

“Yes?”

“I’m back from town.” That’s all she needed to say. In a way, that’s all he would hear.

“Come in. Elina, Leo”—at this point he seemed to always assume his children were following Rene—“leave us be.”

“Yes, Father,” both replied.

They still continued to stand somewhat close as she opened the door, stepped inside the study, and closed the door behind her. Lord Dazuz simply looked at her from his desk, on the opposite side of the room from the door. Rene stayed right where she was.

She couldn’t easily remember any time where he actually greeted her before getting into whatever he wanted to talk about instead.

“Has the boy grown at all?” Lord Dazuz asked.

“They still haven’t confirmed if he’s an omyn yet.”

“Don’t lie to me.” He leaned back in his chair, waving his hand at her. “Try again.”

She frowned, then admitted after a minute, “The queen didn’t bring him with her.”

“Then why, pray tell, were you out so long?”

“The queen wanted to speak with me.” Hiding the fact Rene asked Adelinde to come out, and she just told Lord Dazuz she would be checking on Matteo.

“And?” Lord Dazuz prompted. She really wished he could’ve been a bit more dense.

“That’s it,” Rene replied firmly.

He didn’t seem to believe her. “You really think I’ll accept an answer that boils down to you just talking to Adelinde?”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“No,” Rene said honestly. “But it’s the truth.”

All they did was talk. Then Rene brought up love, essentially confessed to it. Then Adelinde left, which Rene somehow didn’t expect. Now she had to work around it, depending on how Adelinde responded.

It bordered the line between lie and half-truth, but it worked.

Lord Dazuz gave his grunted response—he stopped arguing with her at some point—and she took that as her sign to leave. She turned towards the door, but paused for a second.

Rene glanced over her shoulder to look at him again.

“You never told me,” she said, managing to be both careful and blunt, “What I would have to do, once we get a second omyn?”

He looked at her like she was a child that asked some naïve question. “I’ll tell you once we get there.”

“You can’t give me a word or two as a hint?” Rene asked.

He smiled. “Blood and birthright. Is that enough for you?”

“I guess it has to be.”

“Good. Go on, then.”

Rene didn’t give any murmured acknowledgment, simply opening the door and closing it behind her again as she left. Elina and Leo were still there, almost looking disappointed she didn’t get into any trouble. Without a word to anyone else, she went back to her room.

She slipped off her outer clothes and laid them at the foot of her bed, then went over to her collection of photos. Rene took the photo of her, Adelinde, and Matteo off the wall and stared at it for a minute.

She wanted more moments like that—more times where all she noticed was the way Adelinde smiled and the way Matteo proudly showed off his drawings and babbled on about what the drawing depicted. More times where she forgot why she was even there in the first place.

Carefully, she put the photo back on the wall, then looked at the others—the random pictures she kept of her hometown and some letters that her parents wrote, her single picture of Hannah, storybook illustrations and a list of the things she would want to have in a new nation.

She wouldn’t need any of it if Adelinde accepted. She just needed to trust her and wait for her response.

——

Adelinde stared at her reflection in the mirror. She couldn’t tell if her anxieties about Rene or her annoyances at herself were stronger.

She didn’t want to lose whatever it was she had with Rene, but she didn’t want to risk living through something like what happened with Aurik again. Unfortunately, she couldn’t safely see if it would be different—she couldn’t try something more with Rene without possibly repeating the past. That bothered her more than anything else—that she wanted to be able to fall in love again, but she was scared to. It made her more frustrated at herself than anything.

She realized about an hour after she came home that she left both score books at the conservatory; she waited until the sun set to retrieve them, spending the time in between in her room going over scenarios or humming some nonsensical tune that somehow described her situation in musical terms. Mark tried to check on her, but she avoided explaining anything by pretending she was asleep.

Adelinde only let herself hide for those few hours because she told herself she would be fine the next day, whether or not that was true.

She simply slipped out of the palace after eating dinner, going to the conservatory without making any detours. The score books waited on the piano bench for her; Adelinde picked them up cautiously, as if it could signal Rene to return.

Adelinde flipped through the general one for any damage, then hesitated at the one for Rene. Just opening the front cover revealed a piece of paper stuck the pages; she took the paper out and opened it, sitting the score books back down so she could read it. It seemed like a letter from Rene, each word carefully written to be legible.

I’m sorry if I overstepped. I have a tendency to voice my thoughts without meaning to—you’ve seen me do it before. I meant what I said, but I know the timing wasn’t exactly ideal.

I decided to leave the score books here for you this time; that way, if you need some time to think, you don’t have to talk to me to get them back.

If you’re willing to talk it over, I plan on attending that music festival on the thirty-first in the evening; we can meet there. If you’re not ready by then, you don’t have to talk to me. I won’t seek you out.

Adelinde read it over once or twice before folding it back up again and picking up the score books. It seems like she had four days to try to make a decision.

She spent a majority of the night sorting out her thoughts and feelings, putting them to words or music. She did feel better about it in the morning—but largely because she decided on what her answer would be. She had the next few days until the thirty-first to figure out how she wanted to say it.