Page 80 of Marrying the Savage

I turn toward the sound.

At the end of the corridor, a door stands slightly open. I push it wider and look inside.

It’s a small sitting room, warmer than the others, with faded green wallpaper, shelves of old books, a low table, and a carved wooden horse lying upside down near the rug. A little boy kneels beside it, dark hair flopping into his eyes, one sock halfway off, his mouth pressed into a furious line.

He looks up.

I look down.

We stare at each other.

He is maybe four. Maybe five. Round-cheeked, serious-eyed, dressed in little trousers and a sweater that has clearly lost a fight with jam sometime earlier in the day.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he says.

I blink. “That makes two of us.”

His eyes narrow. “Are you a ghost?”

I look down at my dress. I’m no longer in the wedding gown, thank God, but I am wearing one of the borrowed dresses Marina gave me, dark green and too elegant for wandering around like a suspicious household spirit. My hair is loose, my face probably still pale, and the giant Volodin ring is tied to my finger like I robbed a royal tomb.

“Not currently,” I say.

He considers this. “Ghosts say that.”

“Do they?”

“My papa says if something answers too politely, you should be suspicious.”

I like his papa already.

“Well,” I say, stepping inside, “in that case, no, I’m not a ghost. Obviously. Ghosts have much better posture.”

The boy looks me over with intense suspicion.

Then he points at the wooden horse. “He fell.”

“Tragic.”

“He was jumping.”

“Ambitious.”

“He died.”

“Temporarily, I hope.”

The boy picks up the horse and sets it upright with a solemnity usually reserved for state funerals. “He is brave,” he says.

“I can see that.”

“He fought a dragon.”

“Did he win?”

“No. The dragon cheated.”

“Typical dragon behavior.”