Leone glanced around. The breeze had become strangely cold.
Then a dry leaf lifted from the ground.
It circled Aveline once, caught in a small current that seemed to have appeared from nowhere. Then it circled her again before dropping gently at her feet.
Leone's eyes widened.
Aveline remained perfectly still, but the air around her had begun to move in slow, restless currents, stirring the loose strands of her hair and the edges of her clothes.
She was furious.
Not the sharp, explosive anger that came and went in an instant, but something deeper and far more frightening. The old woman had stood there and calmly suggested that Lydia's suffering could be solved by marrying her to one of the men who had destroyed her. Worse, she had spoken as though Lydia should be grateful for the opportunity to climb into a noble household.
And then she had implied that Lydia might have wanted it.
Aveline could hardly believe what she was hearing.
