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“Leave it,” Juliana warned. “Maybe he’ll learn something. Make some poor sap’s day.”
Getting the drunk prince back to his chambers without anyone noticing was no easy feat, but Juliana had perfected the art over the years. She knew every passageway, every guard rota, every entrance and exit. Before too long, the prince was flung back into his room and collapsed on the thornwood bed. The vines groaned in welcome, crawling around the bedposts. Hawthorn raised a hand to touch one, a bud blooming as he made contact.
“At least someone is pleased to see me…” he sighed.
Dillon set to work removing his boots.
“Oh, leave it,” said Juliana, waving a hand. “My day’s already over. I’ll deal with it.”
“If you’re—“
“It’s fine.”
“I’m sorry—“
“Not your fault.”
Dillon left without another word, slinking into the dimly-lit corridor.
Juliana turned back to Hawthorn, who’d successfully managed to remove his boots and was now tugging off his wine-stained shirt. He flung it to the floor and stared at her as her eyes moved over the flawless panes of his chest.
He smirked. “Well?”
“What?”
“Does it meet with your approval?”
Juliana’s cheeks heated. “Nothing about your appearance makes up for how absolutely loathsome I find you.”
“Ah, so youdofind me attractive!”
“Did you hurt yourself, making that stretch?”
“You sound angry, Jules dear.”
Juliana rolled her eyes. She almost missed the days when he called herfilthy mortaland put worms in her food. “You ruined my day off.”
“Did it ever occur to you that I might miss you?”
That was typical fae speech: phrasing something as a question because you couldn’t state it as a fact. Juliana wasn’t fooled. She’d grown up around the fae—how could she be?
“No,” she said sharply. “Does it ever occur to you that I really, really hate this job?”
“Ah, Jules, it does, but yet you stay with me anyway.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“You do,” he said. “You could leave any time you wanted. Mortal vows are made to be broken, after all. I guess I just enjoy testing you. My dearest Jules, my most loyal companion, it is nice to know that someone will always stay with me.”
It was only after she rolled him into bed and he’d fallen asleep that she thought about his words. He couldn’t say anything he didn’t mean. Was she honestly his most loyal companion?
When she’d returned from her three years in Autumn, the majority of his friends had returned to their own courts. The new ones he made never seemed to last long. She’d always assumed he tired of them… but what if it was the other way around?
And why did this prince who had everything he wanted have no one in the world?
Acrispbreezeblewthrough the woods on the edge of the Autumn Court, brushing the branches aside and turning the leaves as gold as flecks of paint in the still evening light.
It was fifteen years, almost since the day, that Prince Hawthorn was turned into a living bomb. To mark his fifteenth birthday, a grand tournament was being held, and every knight in Faerie was journeying to the capital for the event.
