“Oh!” Her expression brightened. “Thank you.”
“And you?”
“A few things that one really must examine in person to know one is getting the best quality.” She lifted the paper parcel in her basket. “Vanilla pods. And saffron threads.” She tilted her head. “And I need to replace a fine-tipped piping nozzle that I appear to have misplaced.”
Kazrian felt the corner of his mouth twitch. “Ah, yes. The piping nozzle. I believe I heard you discussing the matter with Balthazar yesterday. Rather passionately, as I recall.”
Lucie laughed. “You heard that?”
“I was on the staircase. You were informing Balthazar that you suspected one of the kitchen pixies may have taken it, and you were not pleased.”
“They are truly a wonderful help,” Lucie said, “and I could not manage without them, but they do sometimes run off with things they should not.” She paused. “One of them appears to be building a collection.”
“Of piping nozzles?”
“Of small shiny objects. I found a teaspoon, several coins, and a hair pin in an empty tin in the pantry last week.”
Kazrian’s smile spread wider. “And did you check it yesterday for the piping nozzle?”
“Of course. It was, I regret to report, conspicuously absent. The pixie is either innocent or exceedingly good at hiding the evidence.”
Kazrian laughed, and then Lucie was laughing too, and for a moment the careful distance they maintained at The Honeycomb felt very far away.
Then Lucie tilted her head and frowned at him. “You have …” She gestured at his hair. “Leaves.”
“I—what?”
“Leaves. In your hair. Just here.” She reached up, and her fingers brushed along the side of his head, and the world narrowed to the exact point where her fingertips touched.
She was close. Her hand moved through his hair, loosening something and brushing it away with a soft laugh. Her fingers found another, just above his ear, and Kazrian held very still because if he moved he would almost certainly do something he should not, and her skin smelled faintly of vanilla and something sweet, and she wasright there?—
Her hand stopped. Her eyes met his, and he watched the realization arrive. The sudden awareness of what she was doing, of how close she was standing, of her hand in his hair on a public street in the middle of a market.
She pulled back as though the air between them had caught fire. A quick, flustered laugh. Her hand dropped to her side.
“Forgive me. I do not know what I—” She took a small step backward, and the distance she had always been so careful to keep between them settled back into place. “There were leaves.”
“There were,” Kazrian confirmed. His voice sounded remarkably even, which was a considerable achievement given that every nerve in his body was still ringing. “That would be from the palace gardens earlier this morning. I was visiting Aurelise and Ryden. Cassiel rises at an hour no civilized person should be required to acknowledge—well, all the little ones do. Coralie and Emeric were there too, with their rather beleaguered nurse in tow. And all three of them decided I was something to be climbed on. I believe I was on my hands and knees in the rose garden for most of the visit.”
The flustered look softened into something fond. “And do the three of them play well together? The little cousins?”
“’Play’ is perhaps generous. It is mostly Coralie following Cassiel aboutand removing things from his mouth, and informing everyone within earshot that he isherlittle cousin and they are not to forget it.” He paused. “She is extremely firm on this point.”
Lucie pressed her lips together against a smile. “That sounds rather wonderful.”
“It is. Tiring, but wonderful.”
“I should love to witness it,” Lucie said, and something wistful moved through her voice. “Perhaps I shall see them all at the tea house at some point. I am rather looking forward to it. I have not seen Aure—Lady Aurelise,” she corrected quickly, “in some time.”
“Oh, no. They will all be coming to The Honeycomb. You shall see them soon enough.”
Lucie blinked. “To The Honeycomb?”
“Of course. They are most eager. The only reason they have not descended upon the place already is that Grandmother has strictly told them to give you space until after the launch.”
A hint of a flush darkened Lucie’s skin, just across her cheeks. “Oh. That is … that is kind of her.”
They stood there a moment, the flower stall’s roses nodding in the light behind them, a bee tracing a lazy path between the sweet peas.
