Chapter 124: An evening with the moonstones

Chapter 124 — An Evening With the Moonstones

Liam was leaning against the wall outside the girls’ dormitory when Roxanne came back from her afternoon classes, arms folded, wearing the expression of a man who had rehearsed his entrance and was about to enjoy it.

"Roxanne. Good. I have been waiting for nearly four minutes."

"That sounds like a personal failing."

"My brothers and I are having a film evening in our private common room. You are invited."

She shifted her bag higher on her shoulder. "Is this an invitation or a royal summons?"

"Royal summonses come with considerably more paperwork." He looked wounded. "This one comes with snacks."

"I have work to do."

"Kai chose the film. Roshan bought the snacks. Lucien has already complained about both decisions, at length, in three separate tones of voice."

Roxanne tried to hold on to her refusal. It lasted perhaps two seconds before a laugh got out. "Only for a little while."

"A little while is all any of us can promise," said Liam solemnly, and offered her his arm. She ignored it, and he took no offence.

The brothers’ common room was twice the size of hers and about half as tidy. A great squashed sofa faced a screen, and four people were having an argument across it.

"An action comedy," Liam said, striding in. "Obviously."

"Something with actual fighting," said Kai, from the floor, where he sat with his back against the sofa.

"A mystery," Roshan said mildly, setting down a tray. "Where the ending is not obvious from the first scene."

"Something we can all tolerate," said Lucien, who stood in the middle of the room with a list in his hand, and who had clearly been losing for twenty minutes.

"Roxanne gets the deciding vote," Liam announced. "She’s our guest."

Four faces turned toward her. Roxanne considered them with great seriousness, then picked up the case at the bottom of the pile and held it up. On the cover, a woman in a wind-whipped cloak stared tragically at a man with a scar. The title was *Hearts Across the Storm*.

"This one."

Silence.

"If we’re going to argue," Roxanne said, "we may as well suffer together."

"That is an abuse of authority," Liam said. "I demand a recount."

"The vote was yours."

"I regret it deeply."

Kai got up from the floor without a word and settled on the sofa beside her, close enough that his sleeve brushed hers, and said nothing about it. Roshan slid the bowl of salted caramel popcorn across to her, the kind she liked, which she had mentioned once, weeks ago, in passing. Lucien looked at his list, looked at the room, and quietly folded the paper and put it away. For the first time all evening he sat down.

The film was every bit as bad as she had hoped. The hero, brooding beside a cliff, accused the heroine of betraying him on the strength of a single glove found in a stable. Liam provided commentary until Roxanne picked up a cushion and held it threateningly over her head.

"I’m only improving the dialogue."

"You are ruining it."

"It was ruined before I arrived."

"Look at his stance," Kai said suddenly, frowning at the screen. The hero had drawn a sword against three attackers. "His weight is on the wrong foot. He’d be dead in two seconds."

"He is a tragic hero," said Liam. "Tragic heroes do not need footwork."

"They need it more than anyone."

"There’s a mistake in the timeline," Roshan observed, almost apologetically. "Two scenes ago she was in the capital. Now she has been at the cottage for a month. Nobody travelled."

"Nobody noticed," Liam said.

"I noticed."

"You always notice," said Lucien, and then, with great dignity, "though in fairness to the writer, the underlying structure is sound. The heroine’s motive is understandable. The conflict is, in principle, well constructed—" He broke off as the heroine, for no reason, climbed out of a window and ran into a storm. "No. That is indefensible. I withdraw my remarks."

Roxanne was laughing so hard she had to lean into the cushions. She had missed an entire scene, an apparently crucial one involving a locket, and she demanded that they rewind it. They did. Nobody could tell her what the locket meant.

It struck her, somewhere in the second act, that nobody in this room was looking at her. Not the way people did in the dining hall, with that careful, curious weight. She was not the rejected girl or the protected one or the subject of anyone’s gossip. She was simply a person on a sofa having a perfectly good time.

When the lights came up for the break, the argument over refreshments began at once. Roxanne slipped through the glass doors onto the balcony, where the evening air was cool and smelled of stone and woodsmoke. She stood at the rail and let the noise fall behind her.

After a moment the door opened again and closed softly.

"They are debating whether tea or hot chocolate is the correct choice," Roshan said, joining her. "It may take some time."

"Who’s winning?"

"Nobody. It is a war of attrition." He leaned on the rail beside her, looking out over the dark grounds. "Have you been enjoying yourself lately?"

She thought about it. "I’m trying to stop treating every good day as something that will be taken away."

He was quiet a moment. He did not turn to look at her. "I understand that more than I say."

"Do you?"

"Enjoying something does not oblige you to trust it forever," Roshan said. "You may enjoy it today. You may decide tomorrow what you think of it. Those are separate decisions."

Roxanne let the words settle. They were gentle, and they were exactly what she needed, and she was faintly suspicious of how he always seemed to know. "Do you always have a thoughtful answer ready?"

"No." A small smile. "I simply know when to stop talking."

They stood a while longer, watching the lamps flicker across the courtyard, until Liam’s voice through the door announced that hot chocolate had been decided by force.

When she came back in, the film had resumed, and the volume had climbed. Liam and Lucien were speaking over the dialogue about whether the villain’s cloak was a practical garment. Roxanne sat down and found she could not follow a word. The voices overlapped, and the music swelled, and the scent of caramel and chocolate and five bodies in a warm room pressed in at the edges of her head. She rubbed her temple.

"I can lower the volume," Kai said quietly, beside her.

She looked at him. He was already holding the remote. He had not said *do you need to leave* or *are you unwell*. He had assumed she wanted to stay, and offered to change the room instead of her.

"Please."

He did. The room settled. Roxanne let out a long breath.

"You’re surprisingly considerate," she said, "for someone who treats every training session like a personal war."

"I know the difference between pushing someone and making things harder for them." He said it plainly, looking at the screen. Then he turned his head.

Their eyes met, and held, a little longer than the sentence needed. The film chattered on. Roxanne remembered, suddenly and vividly, a moment in the dark, his voice asking if he could kiss her, and her own answer. *Not today.*

Neither of them said it. It sat between them, unfinished and patient, and she turned her face back to the screen, her heart beating a little faster than a bad film warranted.

The ending was a catastrophe. The hero, finally cleared, rode across a field in slow motion toward the heroine, who had apparently forgiven him for the glove. All five of them watched in silence as the credits rolled over a swelling violin.

"That," said Liam, "was the worst thing I have ever seen."

"Agreed," said Kai.

"I want those two hours back," said Lucien.

"It had a locket," said Roshan, "and nobody explained the locket."

"It was excellent entertainment precisely because it was terrible," Roxanne said, gathering her bag. "I regret nothing."

"We are all in agreement that your choice was a mistake."

"A glorious mistake."

Lucien rose. "I will walk you back to the dormitory." He glanced at his brothers. "The rest of you may deal with the mess."

"Traitor," said Liam, looking around at the popcorn kernels strewn across the carpet.

The corridor was quiet, lit by lamps turned low. Lucien walked beside her with his hands behind his back, in no hurry.

"May I ask whether you feel comfortable around us?" he said at last. "All of us. Not only tonight."

Roxanne thought about it carefully. "I do," she said. "I’m still working out what that comfort means."

He nodded slowly. He did not ask her to define it, or to hurry, or to explain. "That seems reasonable."

At the dormitory entrance, he stopped. "You are welcome to join us again. Even if you choose the film."

"You’ll regret that."

"I am already preparing to."

She went up the stairs lighter than she had been in days.

In bed, with the lamp out, she lay listening to the building settle. Isla’s breathing was slow in the other bed.

You like them, her wolf said.

Roxanne rolled onto her side. They’re my friends.

That is not what I said.

Roxanne dragged the blanket over her head and refused to answer.

Her wolf laughed, low and warm and entirely pleased with herself, and Roxanne, for the first time since the awakening, found herself smiling at the sound rather than wondering what it meant.