In the comfort of the solarium that smelled of warm citrus and stale sympathy. A cup of coffee steamed untouched on the tea table.
Levan sat with one elbow pressed into the table, fingers splayed against his temple. His hair, unruly from a sleepless night, fell in dark waves that caught the morning light; his eyes were closed as if shutting out the world might steady it.
He had spent all dawn in council with the Lord of Dorovian over Seraphine's standing in the palace. The man proved immovable, perhaps because the matter concerned his own daughter. So Levan had left Marion to handle the aftermath because he no longer trusted himself to keep his composure.
The thing that gnawed at him now, however, was smaller in shape and poisonous in its ease. It was a clay jar of brown powder, a single chocolate macaron, and a woman who just last night had been in his tender care to ease the heat from the same damn aphrodisiac.
