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Thicket propelled herself up, dress billowing around her as she climbed. She was in better shape now than when she had first woken up, yet she still found it difficult to breathe. Every breath lodged in her chest, stubbornly clinging to the edges of her lungs.

She had no idea how Marcells would react upon seeing her, not with how they left things. With how she had left things.

You can’t just keep stringing people along, Princess. It’s cruel.

She had been cruel, unable to decide between what her mind told her was right and what her heart craved. But she had made her decision when she ran after the fox.

Thicket hauled herself up the last few feet. Marcellus perched on the ledge just below the clock face. She drank him in, from his short, curly locks to the rigid lines of his back. He hadn’t noticed her yet. His head was bowed, eyes staring absentmindedly at the cityscape below.

“A clock tower,” she mused. “How ironic after all the times you teased me about coming back here.”

Marcellus’ eyes were wide as she settled down on the ledge beside him. “What are you doing? If you fall—”

“You’ll catch me?”

He glowered and looked away.

Thicket dangled her feet over the edge, propping her hands behind her so she could peer up at the sky. “I took care of Lavender.”

Marcellus’ head pivoted back to her. “What do you mean?” Thicket could practically hear the unspoken words from the low undertone of his voice.

Did you kill her?

“She’s not dead,” Thicket said, “just stripped of claws and teeth.”

His brow furrowed, but then his expression shifted, growing distant. “Where were you?”

Thicket knotted her fingers together. “I didn’t mean to leave.”

“Then where the hell did you go? When I heard you were missing…” He raked a frustrated hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have let you out of my sight for even a second. I let my personal feelings get in the way and I—” he broke off, hand falling limply into his lap. His knuckles were white, as though battling to contain all the emotions warring inside him. “I don’t deserve to be your guard.”

“Don’t say that,” she whispered.

“It’s true. I tried to fight it, Princess. I really did. I thought being by your side as your guard was enough for me, but it isn’t.” His eyes met hers. For once, there was no wall in place. The weight of everything he was feeling seared into her, freezing her in time and space and robbing her of her very breath. Seeing his eyes so full was as devastating as it was beautiful.

“I never wanted to be a guard. After my family…” he choked on the words. “After they died, I was furious. At your sister for killing them. At Caspian for leading her army there. At myself, for being too weak to do anything to save them.”

Marcellus’ hand went instinctively to his sword. “Caspian pulled me out of my misery. Gave me my first sword and told me to redirect my anger into something useful. So I did. Eventually, he made me your personal guard. I knew it was only because he had known me growing up, but I took the opportunity anyway, knowing it was my only chance to avenge my family.”

Thicket wanted to reach out. To tell him that wasn’t the reason Caspian had appointed him to be her guard. But Marcellus didn’t give her the chance.

“You asked me what I thought about you when you first woke up. My whole life I had heard stories about the wild princess with the vibrant green eyes and unruly, tangled hair. Heard how she had the strongest magic in all of the Continent and blazed through life like a hurricane. But when you finally woke up and collided into me, you didn’t look like that girl. You looked scared and lost. Timid, even.” His eyes met hers, scanning her face as though he had been transported back to the night they had met. “I saw how deeply rooted your fears were. How much you doubted yourself and how small and weak it made you feel.” His jaw clenched, as though fighting against a truth he had kept buried. “I resented you for it. You were a Princess, after all. A Princess with an entire kingdom willing to put themselves through hell out of loyalty to you. You knew nothing of how I felt, of what it truly meant to be alone and without a home. To be powerless.”

I don’t expect you to understand, he had told her at the ball. How could you? All of your problems are the silly conjuring’s of a curse.

He had been right. Everything she had feared had been in her head. She had spent weeks running from her problems simply because she had let others define her worth. Had let them poison her against herself.

It had been Marcellus who made her question it.

He stared out across the city, taking in the way the stars seemed to hug the rooftops beyond. It occurred to Thicket that this was the first time Marcellus had seen Vindrya’s capital. He had grown up his entire life in Bilya, and was then forced to remain trapped there because of her sister.

For a long, terrifying moment, she thought he was going to leave it at that, confirming her fears were right all along. But then his brows furrowed, his eyes taking on a faraway look, as though he was lost somewhere deep in the confines of his mind.

“Despite your insecurities, there was this fire in your green eyes. You didn’t look like a Princess or a Queen, or any of those other titles people associated with you. You just looked like Thicket, a wild, ferocious thing who would tear the whole world apart fighting for what she believed in. So I pushed you to your limits, wanting to show you how powerful you could be if you just stopped giving into your fears.” The next words were quiet, as if he was unsure whether he should continue. “Eventually, my feelings shifted. I didn’t just want to protect you or your heart anymore. I wanted it.” He buried his face in his hands. “It was ridiculous. I’m a guard and you’re a princess destined to be queen. I tried to shove my feelings aside, tried to keep you at arms length while you got closer and closer to Delmore. I wanted you to be happy, even though watching the two of you made me so jealous I could hardly breathe. I couldn’t even let myself be your friend because the more you opened up to me, the more desperately I wanted you. But it didn’t stop me from wanting to be near you and to do everything in my power to ensure you found happiness, even if it wasn’t with me.”

Marcellus ran a hand down his face, letting out a laugh. It was a broken thing that tugged at the strings of Thicket’s heart.

“There you have it, Princess. All the answers you pestered me for.” He snuck a glance her way. The movement was so shy and vulnerable, it threw her off, made her breathless. “Not what you were expecting, was it?”