ROWAN
The problem with being the reasonable one was that everyone expected you to stay reasonable even when everything around you was falling apart.
I smelled the fight before I saw it.
Perfume and adrenaline and two women who had run out of civil words, and I broke into a stride across the open ground, the sun hammering the back of my neck, and I got there in time to see Lila's hand already raised and Amaris standing with her cheek red and her feet planted, and I closed my hand around Lila's wrist before the second blow could land.
"That is enough." My voice came out harder than I planned. "Let it go, Lila."
"She insulted me," Lila snapped, wrenching against my grip, her voice climbing high and brittle, "she stood there and insulted me to my face and you want me to let it go, Rowan."
I looked at Amaris over Lila's shoulder.
