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Hawthorn picked up the wet sheet and lay back against the damp pillows with the damp part draped over his eyes. “So, you’re not secretly pining after Dillon.”
“I am not,” she assured him. “I like him, I don’t want him to lose his position, and that is all.”
“You were close in the past.”
Juliana’s cheeks heated, remembering a particularly charged moment involving all three of them they’d all silently agreed never to mention ever again. “That’s in the past,” she said swiftly, hoping he’d drop it.
He did. “Fetch me my robe, will you? I have no intention of getting properly dressed today.”
“Good,” said Juliana, throwing a robe in his direction. “For I am taking today off. There’re guards outside. Promise you’ll stay here?”
“I promise,” he sighed, as if it was some great sacrifice he was making. “But only if you take dinner with me.”
Juliana scowled. “Whydo you want me to take dinner with you?”
“Because I take much delight in torturing you, at least in this way.”
She rolled her eyes, returning to her adjacent room to finish buckling on her sword. “I’d be insulted, but honestly, I understand that.”
“You did just throw a jug of water at my head.”
“I did. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
“There are other ways to hear me scream.”
“I’ve slept next door to you for almost three years. I’m well aware of the different ways to make you scream. Not interested in anything that doesn’t involve actual torture, thank you very much.”
“I might be all right with that.”
“Come again?”
“I thought you said you were going out?”
Juliana pursed her lips, wondering if she’d truly heard what she thought she’d heard. He was being evasive. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”
“Enjoy your day.”
“Without you in it? Hard not to.”
Hawthorn muttered something under his breath that she didn’t hear, already halfway out of the door and off on her mission. Hawthorn’s word to her was no longer good enough to keep him out of trouble, and as the assassination attempts were likely to increase the closer to his birthday they got—
It was time for a different tactic.
Her first port of call was the great library.
It was a collection of enormous vaulted rooms in a myriad of dark, muted colours: rich earth reds, forest greens, deep-sea blues. Windows of crystal adorned the ancient walls, but nearly every scrap of stone and glass and bookcase was hidden beneath the twisted vines of the castle, parting only around the books and entrances. Impish librarians patrolled the shelves, guarding everything from venerable lore, forgotten magic, and a rather fine collection of mortal novels that she had found some solace in in her youth.
As she stood in the enormous foyer, she felt a soft nudge at her back, like a cat on a shelf demanding to be fed. She turned to find the vines behind her, lifting volumes up to the highest of shelves.
“Morning,” she said, reaching out a hand to stroke them.
The vines dropped a thick tome in front of her. Juliana picked it up. It was some sordid romance called “The Wicked Prince.”
“Not really my genre,” she replied, holding it back up. The vines rustled, their leaves shaking like the feathers of a perturbed bird. The next volume hit her squarely on the head.
“The Reluctant Bodyguard,“ Juliana read. She rolled her eyes. “Very funny.”
Vines couldn’t snicker, but the shaking mimicked the action so well she could easily be convinced otherwise.
