Astrid let her eyes slide over to Jax, who was suddenly very busy studying the ceiling, the floor, the wine in the glass of lysandra, anything in the entire hall that was not her face.
That alone told her everything she needed to know. She turned back to Roxana, and the smile she wore was the pretty, polite kind that usually came right before somebody lost a limb.
"How generous of you. But you can lay that little burden down. The professor is my problem to manage tonight, not yours. As the host, it would simply break my heart to watch a guest waste her precious evening shackled to a man on my account."
The premium old wine, which had spent the whole evening quietly climbing the stairs to Roxana's head, finally kicked the door in and made itself at home.
