His scarred face was tight with shame, and I wished Trent would shut up and just go with it. This confession was killing Quen.

“Sa’han,” he said evenly. “Morgan can protect you. I cannot. Don’t ask me to do this.”

I fidgeted, wishing I was somewhere else. Jonathan glared at me as if it were my fault. Trent’s face was pained and worried, and Quen flinched when he put a comforting hand upon his shoulder. With a reluctant slowness, Trent let his hand fall away. “Get her a corsage and see if there’s something suitable for her to wear in the green suite. She looks about the same size.”

The flash of relief that crossed Quen was replaced by a deeper self-doubt that looked wrong and worrisome. Quen appeared broken, and I wondered what he was going to do if he felt he couldn’t protect Trent anymore. “Yes, Sa’han,” he murmured. “Thank you.”

Trent’s gaze fell on me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and I felt cold and uneasy. The feeling strengthened when Trent nodded once to Quen and said, “Do you have a moment?”

“Of course, Sa’han.”

The two of them headed into one of the unseen downstairs rooms to leave me with Jonathan. The unhappy man gave me a look rife with disgust. “Leave your dress here,” he said. “Follow me.”

“I have my own outfit, thanks,” I said picking up my shoulder bag, coat, and my garment bag from where I had left them and following him to the stairs. At the foot of the stairs, Jonathan turned. His cold eyes traveled over me and my garment bag, and he sniffed patronizingly.

“It’s a nice outfit,” I said, warming when he snickered.

He took the steps quickly, forcing me to scramble to keep up. “You can look like a whore if you like,” he said. “But Mr. Kalamack has a reputation.” He eyed me over his shoulder as he reached the top. “Hurry up. You don’t have much time to get presentable.”

Seething, I took two steps for every one of his as he cut a sharp right into a large common room holding a comfortable, more normal-sized living room. There was an efficiency at the back, and what looked like a breakfast nook. One of Trent’s live-shot video feeds showed a second view of the dim garden. Several heavy-looking doors opened up onto the area, and I was guessing this was where Trent did his “normal” living. I became sure of it when Jonathan opened the first one to show a small sitting room opening onto an extravagant bedroom. It was decorated entirely in shades of green and gold, managing to look wealthy without dipping into gaudy. Another fake window past the bed showed the forest, dusky and gray with twilight.

I assumed that the other doors led to other such suites of rooms. All the wealth and privilege couldn’t hide that the entire area was set up to be very defensible. There probably wasn’t a real window in the place other than the one downstairs covered in ley line energy.