Page 108 of The Pumpkin Bride

“Not recently,” she said. “I love you, too. Always.”

For the first time since she’d arrived, the bricks he’d stacked around these last three years heart shook, and a few tumbled free.

Before daybreak, after writing a note for Coby, Bram wrote another for Marigold. Contacting my friend. Back by dinner. Upstairs, he’d left her tucked in bed, lightly snoring.

A detail she’d deny.

Too bad, because it was one of the intimacies he cherished. In Thornwick, he thought he knew her through and through because she’d shared her sarcasm and her sadness, traits the royal family would never allow her to exhibit publicly.

Because princesses must be kind, beautiful, and generous.

They didn’t curse when they stumbled over a rock. They didn’t disguise themselves to barter in the marketplace and argue with a baker that they’d been shortchanged. And they certainly didn’t sneak into the hayloft with a young knight of the realm.

All those moments were evidence that she’d let him in. But this Marigold? The one who shared his home and let him see her make mistakes as she learned? Allowed him to tend to her scrapes and scrub the mud from her back?

This was a woman who allowed herself to be known by him.

The frost melted as he crunched his way toward the hazy border of the hinterlands and Harvest Hollow proper. Over the last three years, he’d scoped out all the places where contact with others might be possible. During the first year, he’d taken a run at various parts of the border that seemed thin, hoping that this time, he’d push through.

No such luck. Each time he tried to breach the boundary, whether he wielded an axe, a sword, or his own brute strength, he collided with an invisible barrier, bruised and angry. Never the best student, it took him far too many attempts to accept the magic wouldn’t let him through.

There was learning, however.

For example—he could throw things across the boundary. His voice carried as well. Understandably, the average man was terrified of an orc randomly roaring at them and tossing boulders in their direction. Several times people fainted at his mere appearance.

Most sprinted away from him.

Today he was hoping to entice someone to fetch Coby. He didn’t have time to wait for their weekly covert meeting. Marigold’s encounter with the autumn sprite had inspired him. If Coby remembered the loophole, he might yet be able to break the curse without endangering Marigold.

Beneath his boots, the fallen golds and reds softened his footsteps. As he approached the crossing where Marigold reported meeting the new neighbor boy, the hair on his arms raised as it always did near the boundaries. Sweet luck—the shape of a child moved through the trees beyond the boulder that marked the border of his land.

Deliberately, he made noise to catch the attention of the boy.

The young one sliced a stick through the air as though it was a broadsword. Bram had been a boy like that once—playing at knighthood and glory. He relaxed his shoulders and slouched, doing his best not to appear intimidating. A lost cause, he was sure.

Because green, muscled, and tusks.

But worth trying. He rearranged his features into what he hoped was a gentle smile.

“Ho there, young man.” To his own pointy ears, his voice was gruff. “My name’s Jask.”

The boy snapped to attention. His eyes widened, but he didn’t run. Stunned, perhaps?

“I know,” the boy said. “The lady I met said she lived with her orc friend. My ma warned me to stay away from you.”

Wise mother.

The boy remained rooted to his spot. “We live here for free because no one else wants to live in a graveyard next to an orc’s farm. Do you eat children?”

“Not on Tuesdays,” Jask said.

The boy giggled. “Then I’m glad it’s Tuesday.”

The sun shone bright as Bram’s heart shifted in his chest. Saints, the frothy sound of a child’s laughter was a magic unto itself.

“Can I ask you a favor?” he asked.

The boy pointed his stick-sword. “Ma says no adult should ever need a child’s help.”