Free Lenobia's Vow: A House of Night Novella by P. C. Cast, Kristin Cast Page A

could not come soon enough for Lenobia. Finally, when the sky through her porthole began to blush, Lenobia could wait no longer. She almost sprinted to the door, pausing only because Marie Madeleine’s voice warned, “Have a care, child. Do not remain too long with the horses. Staying out of the Bishop’s sight means you are staying out of his mind as well.”
    “I will be careful, Sister,” Lenobia assured her before disappearing into the hallway. She did watch for the sunrise, though her thoughts were already belowdecks, and before the orange disc had fully broken free of the watery horizon, Lenobia was hurrying silently but quickly down the stairs.
    Martin was already there, sitting on a bale of hay, facing the direction from which she usually came into the cargo hold. The grays whinnied at her, which made her smile, and then she looked at Martin, and her smile faded.
    The first thing she noticed was that he hadn’t brought her a bacon and cheese sandwich. The next thing she noticed was the absence of expression on his face. Even his eyes seemed darker and subdued. Suddenly he was a stranger.
    “What do I call you?” His voice was as emotionless as his face.
    She ignored his strangeness and the awful feeling it gave her in the pit of her stomach, and spoke to him as if he were asking her which brush to use on the horses, like nothing at all was amiss. “Lenobia is my name, but I like it when you call me cherie .”
    “You lie to me, you.” His tone stopped her pretense and she felt the first chill of rejection pass through her body.
    “Not on purpose. I did not lie to you on purpose.” Her eyes begged him to understand.
    “A lie still a lie,” he said.
    “All right. You want to know the truth?”
    “Can you tell it?”
    She felt as if he had slapped her. “I thought you knew me.”
    “I thought I did, too. And I thought you trusted me. Maybe I was wrong twice.”
    “I do trust you. The reason I did not tell you I was pretending to be Cecile was because when I was with you, I was the real me. There was no pretense between us. There was just you and me and the horses.” She blinked back her tears and took a few steps toward him. “I would not lie to you, Martin. Yesterday was the first time you called me by her name, called me Cecile. Remember how quickly I left?” He nodded. “It was because I did not know what to do. It was then that I remembered I was supposed to be pretending to be someone else, even with you.” There was a long silence, and then he asked, “Would you have ever told me?”
    Lenobia didn’t hesitate. She spoke from her heart to his. “Yes. I would have told you my secret when I told you I loved you.”
    His face reanimated and he closed the few feet that separated them. “No, cherie . You cannot love me.”
    “Cannot? I already do.”
    “It is impossible.” Martin reached out, took her hand, and lifted it gently. Then he raised his own arm until the two were side by side, flesh to flesh. “You see the difference, you?”
    “No,” she said softly, gazing down at their arms—their bodies. “All I see is you.”
    “Look with your eyes and not your heart. See what others will see!”
    “Others? Why do we care what they will see?”
    “The world matters, perhaps more than you understand, cherie .”
    She met his gaze. “So you care more for what others think than for what we feel, you and I?”
    “You do not understand.”
    “I understand enough! I understand how I feel when we are together. What more is there to understand?”
    “Much, much more.” He dropped her hand and turned, walking quickly to the stall to stand beside one of the watching grays.
    She spoke to his back. “I said I would not lie to you. Can you say the same to me?”
    “I will not lie to you,” he said, without turning to look at her.
    “Do you love me? Tell me the truth, Martin, please.”
    “The truth? What difference does the truth make in a world like this?”
    “It makes all the