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“She’s gorgeous.”
He huffs, rolls his eyes, and stares at me.
I don’t know what all that meant, so I ask, “What?”
“If beauty swayed me, I’d be on my knees for you.”
Oh yes, I’m so beautiful, completely drenched here. And I don’t know why he keeps saying he or his brother would be on his knees. I would be the one on my knees if we ever… I’m pretty sure I’m going gaga.
“I thought I was unattractive,” I remind him.
“You are.” He shrugs. “Like I said, beauty doesn’t sway me.”
“Fine.” I get back to the point I was trying to make. “Did you have to almost kill her?”
He frowns. “She just passed out. Astra, she suggested I should keep you as my bed servant. That’s a royal prostitute, in case you don’t understand. If I let her insult you like that, I’d be letting her insult the Crystal Court Crown, insult me.” So that was what it was all about. Of course. “It was a test.”
“Now you passed it, and made a lifelong enemy.”
“Doubt it. She’ll laugh about it tomorrow.” He pauses, then rubs the back of his left hand, over the new, jagged scar. “I might have to pay for her windows, though. I…” He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, then looks at me. “It was the right thing, considering her insult.”
“We could be in an old library now, instead of drenched here.” I’m still wondering what I could discover in ancient books, still carrying a sliver of hope that there’s something about my people I was never told. Stupid hope.
“There are more libraries.” He waves a hand, then stares at me with his impossibly dark eyes. “You don’t care about what she said? What she did? The way she ignored you?”
What I hate was the way he was ignoring me when we first came into her presence, but I don’t want to say that. I snort, as if the idea was ridiculous. “Should I be jealous?”
He fiddles with his rings. “Not jealous. Insulted.”
“When someone’s beneath me, I don’t care about their opinion.” This sentence was part of my training to act like a princess, but it’s a good reminder for myself. I often forget it, but not always.
“True.” He tilts his head, considering. “They still shouldn’t say it like that.” He then stares at the river, as if looking for something, then back at me. “The coronation is tomorrow.”
I’m surprised at the change of subject, and not only that. “Already?” In my mind, we still had some two or three days before it.
He nods. “We can set up camp now, so we don’t need to travel again.”
Camp? “Can’t we travel in the river, or with Cherry Cake? Or a fae portal?” Then I add, “I’m just curious.” And it’s true.
His eyes are unfocused as he shakes his head lightly. “Not really. And camping is safer.”
Camping without supplies, near a castle where they want us dead, in an area where someone might try to kill him—that sounds fantastic. I keep the thought to myself, though, and smile. “All right.”
He points further down the river. “There are small islands there.”
We walk by the margin until we approach the “islands”. They’re more like sandbanks with some sparse ground vegetation.
He holds me, then we float gracefully across the river to an island smaller than our kitchen in the hideout. Now that I’ve experienced the clumsy way he stopped our fall, I’m not so sure his magic is that controlled.
“Couldn’t we have escaped like this?” I ask. He blinks, and I add, “From the castle. Floated to the river?”
He walks around the island, as if to double check that it’s indeed tiny. “Air is not my primary magic.”
It makes sense. “It’s water, right? Or rather, ice?”
His steps falter and his eyes widen for half a second, but then he raises a shoulder. “I suppose.”
“I mean ice because you can only chill water, not heat it, so your magic is different. It’s not really water magic.”
