I was quiet, though I really wanted to tell the Grey Guard to leave.
Behind me, no one left, because they were deeply nosy, every last one of them, and I would deal with that later.
“I did not mean to scare you, and I am sorry for that.” Pip studied me. His finger was still on my mouth and his eyes moved over my face with a slow, careful attention—the kind of look I’d seen him give fabric he wanted to remember, or food he wanted to taste again, or a sky he thought was lovely. He was memorizing me. Reading something in my expression that I had not realized I was showing.
Then a smile broke across his face like sunrise.
It was not a small smile. It was the full, devastating, incandescent thing—the one that made his eyes crinkle and his dimples deepen and his whole body seem to lighten, as though joy had mass and his had just become weightless.
“The thing is, no one ever would have looked for me,” he said.
I frowned. “What?”
“Back home. If I’d gone missing for three hours in San Jose, nobody would have even noticed.” His smile wobbled, steadied. “And you? You assembled a war party.”
“It is not a war party. It is a search detail. And of course someone would look for you—you are—” I struggled with the words, which was unusual, because I was not a man who struggled with words. “You are wonderful. You are maddening and brave and absurd and wonderful, and you do not deserve to be missing for even a single hour of a single day. Not from my sight. Not from anyone’s.”
Pip’s eyes went glassy.
He jumped.
He launched himself upward and I caught him against me. His arms looped around my neck and his legs wrapped around my waist and his mouth found mine.
The kiss was not gentle. It was fierce and messy and tasted of salt and flowers and the faintly sweet residue of whatever he’d been eating, and the silver at his throat sang so loudly the sound resonated in my teeth.
He pulled back. His forehead pressed against mine. His breath was ragged and his flower crown had fallen off entirely and his fingers were digging into the back of my neck with a grip that suggested he had no intention of letting go.
I set him down gently. My hands were shaking again, but differently now—not with fear but with something bigger, something that did not fit inside my body.
“Where were you?” I asked, because I needed a moment before I could do what he was asking me to do.
“Did you know there’s a huge, wonderful hedge maze in the front gardens?”
“You took a horse in the Queen’s hedge maze?”
“Periwinkle wanted to. Also, in case you wondered, I don’t have a fantastic sense of direction.”
I closed my eyes. “I was vaguely aware of that.”
“Of the hedge maze, or my sense of direction?”
“Both. Last week you called the west tower the south wing.”
“Oh, come on. Who keeps track of which way is west?”
“Pretty much everyone,” Vaelith called. I shot her a glare. “What? The sun sets there. How can you not know?”
Pip tilted his head. “Oh. Is that how you tell?”
“Vaelith. Go. Now.” This time, I heard the clatter of my soldiers shuffling away. “Everyone out.”
“I needed a moment to gather my thoughts before confronting you about the marriage thing. And Periwinkle and I agreed that riding him was not the best option. So I walked him instead. We found the maze and went in, and we couldn’t get out. It’s really tricky. I think it might be enchanted? The turns don’t make any sense.”
“The Queen does not allow horses in her hedge maze. And it is not enchanted, you simply need a sense of direction.”
Pip considered this. “Tell that to Periwinkle. It was his idea.”
I looked at Periwinkle. Periwinkle looked at me with the placid indifference of a horse who knew he was very pretty and would be allowed to go anywhere.
