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“I agreed to serve you until your eighteenth birthday,” she said, even though she had already told Maytree she’d stay throughout. “I suppose that doesn’t actually include the day, does it? Want to bargain for a few more hours?”
“What would you do with them?” he asked. “If I made you stay? Would you guard me until the curse took effect? Stand watch by my bedside until dear Princess Serena comes to free me?”
“I could probably be persuaded,” she said. “You know. For the right price.”
There was no laughter in his voice. “You should go.”
“What?”
“Go. Get as far away from here as you can—”
“I appreciate the offer, but I shall be remaining here.”
“Gone soft on me after all these years?”
“Something like that.”
Juliana sank into the chair opposite, picking the bag back up, just to occupy her fingers. Her lap shifted under the weight of the coins she didn’t care to inspect. For a moment, a sharp silence stretched out between them.
“I could do with some barbs right now, Jules,” Hawthorn whispered.
“I’m sure I could summon some.” She reached forward towards the jug of wine between them, and poured two goblets. “Shall we play a game? I shall say three things, two truths, one lie. If you guess correctly, I’ll drink. If not, you have to.”
“Drinking on the job?”
“You did just try to dismiss me.”
“Then why are you still here?”
Half a smile tugged at her cheeks, but she didn’t quite loose it. “One. Because I have nowhere better to be. Two. I am secretly a spy sent to deliver you at midnight. Three. I am here as your friend.”
Hawthorn paused. “One?” he queried.
Juliana smiled. “Drink.”
Hawthorn obliged, taking a swig from the goblet. “Just checking,” he said, “but the right answerwasthree, right?”
Juliana did not reply.
He shook his head. “I wish I could despise you.”
I know the feeling.
“Next round,” she said, before she could lose herself too much in that thought, “If I wasn’t going to be a knight, I would like to be a—”
“Horse trainer,” Hawthorn answered, before she could even list her options. “Perhaps a stablemaster. Something with horses. Next.”
Juliana blinked. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you that.”
“Have you not?” he shrugged, holding up his glass. “I’m right though, aren’t I? Drink.”
Juliana took a careful sip.
“Your favourite colour is mauve or pale green, your birthday is the 18th Autumn, and your childhood pet was a mouse named Ravenger, before you offer me something equally dull,” he said, drinking despite the lack of a loss.
“How do you know all that?”
“I know precisely four pieces of personal information about you, and I’ve now used them all up,” he reported.
