“Your Grace,” she said, but my mother quickly raised a delicate hand.

“There’s no need for formalities, Ellie. Not with family,” my mother said, her soft smile resting gently on her soon-to-be daughter-in-law.

Ellie beamed.

Fates, she was gorgeous. She knew it too.

“Not quite family yet,” I said, aiming to match Ellie’s grin, though through gritted teeth.

My father coughed, and my mother blinked rapidly. “Why, Evander,” she said, surely intending to scold me.

“Just wouldn’t want to jinx it,” I said, impressed that my smile had not faltered in the slightest.

Ellie simply ignored me.

“Evangeline.” Ellie grinned, saying my mother’s name like it was an honor. “Did I hear correctly that the trade deal between Dwellen and the villages of the Eastern Shores is to be finalized soon?”

My mother set her silverware on the table, and I braced myself for yet another evening of having to watch my mother, my mother, the female who was supposed to inherently prefer me, bond with a woman I was fairly certain hated me.

“How did you hear about that?” my mother asked, though it was clear she was delighted Ellie had even thought to bring up the subject.

“Blaise was in the library earlier and overheard—”

My father’s fork scraped his plate. “Blaise? In the library?” Suspicion furrowed his stony brow. In her youth, Blaise had been known to throw the not-so-occasional temper tantrum during her reading lessons—the ones my father paid for. “That child would do anything to get out of a day’s work, wouldn’t she?”

Ellie’s eyes went wide, and she swallowed. “I didn’t mean to imply Blaise wasn’t working. I only—”

“She was working. For me,” I said. Ellie’s slender shoulders sagged in relief, though she kept her gaze averted from mine.

My father traced circles upon the dinner table with his finger. “Pray tell, Evander, what task of yours is so important that you would encourage Blaise to shirk her duties?”

“Let’s just say she’s researching a certain engagement gift for Ellie.” I kept my eyes pinned on Ellie, and I didn’t miss the way she bristled, preparing herself for where this conversation was inevitably headed.

My mother huffed in exasperation at my disregard for manners. “Evander, you can’t go about hoisting the responsibility of finding a gift upon someone else. It defies the whole point.”

“On the contrary, Mother. I only thought Blaise’s taste might be better suited to the task. Knowing me, I’d probably choose wrongly.”

“Well. I’m sure Ellie would love anything you gifted her, just by nature of it being from you. Wouldn’t you, Ellie?”

How I loved my mother.

Ellie practically choked on her asparagus, but she recovered quickly enough. “Of course. I’m of the opinion that gifts are the perfect way for a person to show how closely they’ve been listening to their loved one.”

My mother’s smile faltered, and she bounced her knowing eyes between the two of us.

My father appeared to be savoring his potatoes, a conniving smirk spreading across his mouth.

Fine, Ellie didn’t like my gift. I was two hundred thirty years old; I wasn’t going to let my feelings get hurt over something like that. She had every right not to like it if she didn’t want to.

But to be angry with me?

When I’d tried. I might have failed, but I’d at least tried.

I didn’t get it.

I didn’t get it then. I didn’t get it three days later, and I was still stewing.

My mother spent the rest of dinner initiating discussions that sputtered into nothing.

Ellie excused herself from the table early that night, my father on her heels. I supposed he’d gotten used to having her around to buffer my presence and could no longer bear sitting at the dining table with me any longer than absolutely necessary.

My mother stayed awhile longer as I picked at my chicken breast.

Everything was so bland today. Had Collins fallen ill?

“Evander.”

My mother’s voice was gentle, but there was a sternness to it I rarely heard, even in childhood. She’d always used that tone with Jerad, never me. I always figured she spared me many a reprimand, thinking I got more than my fair share from my father.

“Yes?”

“You’re not being very responsive to Ellie lately,” she said.

“I don’t see why that’s unexpected,” I said. “Neither of us wants to marry the other, after all.”

My mother frowned. “I understand that you say you don’t have feelings for her—”

“Oh, I have feelings—”

“—but trust me when I say your life will be easier if you try to grow to love her.”

My gut twisted at that. Was that what my mother had done, grown to love my father? I’d always wondered. She seemed much too kind to love someone so cruel. But perhaps that was a fault of kind people; they tended to see good where there was none. My parents had been married for centuries before I came along. From my perspective, my mother had always seemed smitten with my father, adoring him despite his manifold faults. But had she always loved him so, or had she simply done what she always did, and made the best of a less-than-ideal situation?

I couldn’t decide if that made me proud or sad or a little of both.

“Yeah, well, that’s the problem. I tried, but El’s not so great at being on the receiving end.”

My mother sat straight up in her chair. “What exactly did you do, Evander?”

“Like I said. I reached out. Ellie’s always talking about setting up a glassblowing shop, except instead of windows and bland functional items, she wants to make art. Like crystal sculptures and plates and dishes, and all sorts of things out of glass, that way the working class can afford pretty things. So I spent all this time and effort recruiting artists who were up to the task and buying supplies, and I even got the deed to a shop that was perfect. And then we get there, and she acts like I’ve just murdered her favorite puppy. I just…I don’t know how to win with her, Mother.”

My mother’s face remained pleasant and gentle, but there was something there brewing under the surface, a knowing look that always had me wondering what she was remembering from my childhood that I didn’t. “Why do you think Ellie was upset?”

I tapped my fingers against the table. “I don’t know. Actually, you know what? I know exactly why. Because she’s so stubborn, and she’s convinced she has to do everything herself, and it’s like if you try at all to help her, then you’ve soiled the whole thing.”

“Hm,” was all my mother said.

I craned my head to the side. “What?”