Eirin's teeth worried at her thumbnail, a nervous habit she could not get rid of. A tight knot of anxiety twisted in her stomach: it was already the 13th of August, and she had only a few fleeting days to complete their critical mission. Tomorrow, the weeping bindweed shall bloom.
"If you want, Miss, I can take care of the boy so you could eat with His Grace and Her Grace," Masie offered, her voice soft and deferential, her hands clasped neatly before her. But the suggestion struck a discordant note in Eirin.
Trust Masie? After she'd just endured the mortification of bathing her 'worst enemy'—the arrogant, perpetually annoyed Shade Cromwell—because she couldn't bear to let him out of her sight for even a second? The memory of that awkward, tense bath, even with a fever-addled child-Shade, made her stomach clench anew.
'No, leaving him alone with a stranger, no matter how kind, was not an option,' the teenage girl thought.
