I couldn’t help but be impressed by Trent’s main building. The three-story edifice was settled in among the surrounding vegetation as if it had been here for hundreds of years rather than forty. The white marble sent glints of sunlight to pool against the trees like a sunrise from the west. Large pillars and wide shallow steps made an inviting entry. Surrounded by trees and gardens, the office buildings had a sense of permanence those in the city lacked. Several smaller buildings sprawled from the main one, attached by covered walkways. Trent’s renowned walled gardens took up much of the side and back, the acres of well-tended plants surrounded by fields of grass and then his eerie planned-out forest.

I was the first one out of the van, my gaze crossing the road to the distant low-slung buildings where Trent raised his thoroughbreds. A tour bus was just leaving, obnoxiously noisy and emblazoned with advertisements to visit Trent’s gardens.

Jenks flitted up to land on my shoulder, since my current earrings were too small for him to perch on, grumbling about his inability to figure out what Quen was. I turned back to the main building and started up the stone steps, heels clicking in a steady cadence. Edden was quick behind me.

My gut tightened when I saw a familiar silhouette waiting for us by the marble pillars. “Jonathan,” I whispered, my dislike for the extremely tall man swinging into a slow hatred. Just once I’d like to climb those stairs and not have his haughty eyes on me.

My lips went tight and I suddenly was glad for having worn my best suit-dress despite the unseasonable heat. Jonathan’s suit was exquisite. It had to have been tailored to him since he was too tall to be able to buy anything off the rack. His dark hair was graying around the temples, and the wrinkles around his eyes were embedded as if acid had etched them in concrete. He had been a child during the Turn, seemingly marked forever by its fear in his gaunt, almost malnourished stance.

Tidy and overdressed, his manner screamed British Englishman, but his accent was as midwestern as mine. He was clean shaven, his cheeks and thin lips never stirring from a perpetual frown unless it was at someone’s expense. He had grinned the entire three days I had been a mink trapped in a cage in Trent’s office, his vivid blue eyes alive and eager as he tormented me.

Quen strode quickly up the stairs to pull ahead of me. My eye started to tic as the two men put their heads together. They turned, Jonathan’s professional smile laced with professional irritation. Nice.