Chapter 40: Small Things

The palace felt different without Seraphine in it.

Olivia noticed it the moment she stepped into the main corridor that morning. The particular tension that had been living in the walls for the past three days had simply lifted. The other maidens moved more freely. The chefs were louder in the kitchen. Even Jean seemed to walk with slightly less stiffness in her shoulders.

Olivia went about her morning duties with a quiet efficiency that felt almost like peace.

She was in Josh's study, arranging the bookshelves the way he liked them, largest to smallest on the left, reference materials on the right, the ones he was currently reading on the small stand beside the window, when she started humming.

She did not realise she was doing it. It was the blood moon song. The one she had been singing in the garden the night she shifted. It came out of her without permission, low and absent-minded, while her hands moved along the spines of the books.

You sound happy, Lisa said.

"I am working," Olivia replied quietly.

You are humming.

"I am allowed to hum."

You never hum.

"Lisa…"

He is behind you.

Olivia's hands stopped on the books.

She turned around.

Josh was standing in the doorway of his own study, one shoulder leaning against the frame, watching her with an expression she had never seen on his face before. Not cold. Not demanding. Not the carefully controlled blankness he usually wore.

Just watching.

"Your majesty." She straightened immediately. "I did not hear you come in. I apologise for the noise."

"You were not making noise," he said.

He came into the study and sat at his desk. He did not open any of his correspondence. He did not pick up his pen. He just sat and looked at her for a moment in a way that made her want to find something urgent to do with her hands.

"Continue," he said.

"Your majesty?"

"The humming." He picked up his pen then. "Continue. It does not bother me."

Olivia stared at him.

He likes it, Lisa said smugly. I told you. I told you he…

"Lisa," Olivia said under her breath.

Josh looked up. "What?"

"Nothing, your majesty." She turned back to the bookshelf. "Forgive me."

She did not hum again. But her face felt warm and she was grateful her back was to him.

++++

She was almost done with the shelf when he spoke again.

"Where did you learn that song?"

Olivia paused. "My mother taught it to me, your majesty. It is a blood moon song. Our pack used to sing it every year."

A silence.

"Your pack," Josh said. "The Moon Shadow Pack."

"Yes, your majesty."

Another silence. Longer this time.

"Did you miss it?" he asked. "Your pack. Before everything happened."

Olivia turned to look at him. It was not the kind of question she had expected. Not from him. Not today.

"Every day," she said honestly.

Josh looked at her for a moment. Something moved through his eyes.

"I have never had that," he said quietly. More to himself than to her. "Something worth missing."

Olivia did not know what to say to that. So she said nothing. She turned back to the last few books on the shelf and arranged them carefully.

The study was very quiet. But it was the comfortable kind.

++++

She was gathering the cleaning cloth to leave when he said it.

"Lord Adler's delegation left this morning."

"Yes, your majesty. I saw from the window."

"The alliance proposal has been withdrawn."

Olivia stopped.

She turned. "The whole proposal?"

"Lady Seraphine was the central condition of it," Josh said. He was looking at his desk. "Lord Adler made that clear when he arrived. A political pairing alongside the trade agreement." He set his pen down. "I declined."

The room was very quiet.

"You declined," Olivia said carefully.

"Yes."

She looked at him. He was not looking at her. He was looking at the desk with that expression she had learned to read over the past weeks. The one that meant he had made a decision and was not going to explain it further and did not particularly want to be thanked for it.

She thought of Seraphine's words in the storage room.

Walk away now, while you still have something resembling dignity.

She thought of Josh's voice by the broken fountain.

Stay.

She thought of Lisa saying he is our mate every five minutes without apology or embarrassment.

"Your majesty," Olivia said.

He looked up.

"Thank you," she said simply.

He held her gaze for a moment.

"Do not thank me," he said. "I did not do it for sentimental reasons."

"Of course not, your majesty," Olivia said.

Liar, Lisa said cheerfully, to both of them.

"Lisa," Olivia said sharply.

"What?" Josh asked.

"Nothing." She picked up her cloth. "I will go and fetch your breakfast."

She was at the door when he said her name.

"Olivia."

She stopped.

"The song," he said. Without looking up from his desk. "You can hum it. When you are working. It does not…" He stopped. Cleared his throat. "It does not disturb me."

Olivia stood in the doorway for a moment.

"Yes, your majesty," she said quietly.

She stepped out into the corridor.

She pressed her back against the wall beside the door and stood there for three full seconds.

I knew it, Lisa said.

"Not a word," Olivia whispered.

She pushed off the wall and walked to the kitchen with her chin up and her face completely composed.

Only her eyes were smiling.

++++

Harris came around the corner of the corridor just as Olivia disappeared toward the kitchen.

He had been heading to the study to speak to Josh about the departure of Lord Adler's delegation. A perfectly reasonable excuse for visiting his cousin that had nothing to do with wanting to know what had been said in that meeting.

He stopped.

He had not caught much. Just the end of it. Josh saying her name. That particular quiet in his voice that Harris had not heard since before the curse had gotten bad. And Olivia standing in the doorway with her back straight and her face carefully neutral and something in her eyes that she was not quite managing to hide.

Harris stood in the corridor for a moment.

He had grown up with Josh. He had watched him close himself off piece by piece as the curse tightened. Had watched him build walls and maintain distance and push away anything that threatened to matter.

He had never once heard Josh tell someone their humming did not disturb him.

Harris looked at the door of the study.

Then he looked at the corridor where Olivia had just disappeared.

His wolf, which had been restless and difficult for weeks, went very quiet.

Not the peaceful kind of quiet.

The kind that came just before something inevitable.

Harris turned around and walked back the way he had come.

He needed to think.