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“Ugh!” Juliana held up her hands. “I’m going to get dressed.”
“For the record, I have no problems with you guarding me dressed in your current attire. Bed hair really suits you. Also, you have lovely ankles.”
“I hate you.”
“Semi-naked really suits you too.”
Juliana slammed the door between their two rooms.Nine weeks,she told herself.Just nine more weeks of this.
And then what?
All being well, she’d have her knighthood. She’d be able to go anywhere—anywhere in Faerie, at least. She’d have freedom and respect and purpose.
Why did she suddenly feel like she’d be losing something?
A vine dropped from the ceiling and curled around her cheek. She reached out to touch it. The vines never bloomed at her touch like they did for Hawthorn’s, but they seemed to hum against her skin.
She would be sorry to leave here, to leave them, to leave her room.
Was that all she feared losing?
She sat down on her bed, not even straightening out the sheets. They were still warm.
And last night, although she had not dreamed, she woken restful, that feeling of emptiness abated.
“I hate you,” she whispered to the shape in the sheets.
It was easier than admitting anything else.
AfteracceptingHawthorn’soffer,Juliana was escorted to a small door at the side of his room she’d always assumed to be some kind of closet.
“Your room,” Hawthorn explained. “I do hope you like it. Might not be homely enough for you, though. No mud.”
Juliana scowled, but moved forward to wrench open the door.
She had to stifle her gasp.
She had expected it to be a provincial, rudimentary thing, little bigger than a closet with nothing more than a cot to sleep in and a trunk for her clothes. If she was lucky, she thought, she might get something a little cosier, like the room she occupied as a girl in the servants’ quarters. This… this was something else. Although smaller and less grand than Hawthorn’s, and devoid of gold embellishments, it nevertheless seemed fit for a royal. A substantial bed made of black, blooming thorns stood at the centre, hung with curtains that shimmered like dragonfly’s wings. The bed and all the furnishings were piled high with deep blue-green velvets, rich purple satins. Everything was dark and sleek and soft.
I belong here,she reminded herself, wishing she could burn the clothes on her back.I belong here. This is mine.
“Is it to your liking?” Hawthorn asked.
“It’ll do.”
A smile flickered in his face, different from the others he’d worn in the past two days. Almost… almost warm.
“Perhaps you’d like a little while to settle in, maybe clean up? The party has barely begun.”
“Right,” she said, realising for the first time how much of a mess she was. “Of course.”
He turned to leave.
“Hawthorn—“ she started, and then stopped herself. What an informality. “I mean, Your Highness—”
“We successfully managed almost our entire schooling together without you being so civil, let’s not ruin that now.”
“Well, Prince, then.”
