I read the note twice before I let myself react.
The stepqueen's handwriting was elegant, deliberately so each loop and flourish designed to look like warmth, like an aunt reaching out to a favored niece. *A private gathering, just the two of us, to mend what's grown strained between our families.* Alone. No mention of Caspian, no mention of anyone at all, which was itself the loudest warning the note could have given.
"You're not going," Ryan said, reading my face rather than the parchment.
"I have to go." I folded the note along its original creases, buying my self a moment to think. "If I refuse, she'll know I suspect her. If I attend and refuse to drink, she'll know the same thing by a slower road. The only way through this is to go, and go carefully."
"Then I'm coming with you."
