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“Yeah,” I reply, swallowing thickly. “I’m ready to go home.”
Rowan glances over his shoulder, toward the tent where Alindra is staying.
“I still think you should talk to her before we go,” he says.
“And I still think you should mind your own fucking business,” I grumble, but the bite has gone out of my voice. I sigh as last night’s wine beats the inside of my skull like a drum. “I don’t have anything to say to her,” I admit.
Rowan looks at the wine bottle in his hand, then raises an eyebrow as if something trapped inside the greenish glass is very interesting.
“And if she has something to say to you?” he asks, in a way that instantly raises every suspicion in what’s left of my body.
I glance past Rowan’s shoulder and into the blinding sunshine streaming through the tent door. I honestly don’t know where he was last night, and I can’t see the tent I’ve been trying to ignore for the week and a half we’ve been stuck here, waiting for the stars to align or whatever else was holding things up. But I know the tent is still there. And I know she’s there too, ignoring me just as thoroughly as I’m ignoring her.
“She knows where to find me,” I finally say.
Rowan snorts, then throws his hands up. Leftover wine sloshes out of the neck of the bottle and splashes across the floor. I wince at the mess.
“Voids,” Rowan spits. “And you call me stubborn! You two are impossible.”
I glare at him as I rub my temple.
“You deserve each other, you know that?” Rowan says, with a grin.
“Go to hell,” I growl.
That only makes Rowan’s smile widen.
“Even worse,” Rowan replies. “Let’s go to the World’s End.”
I roll my eyes, which does nothing to help my headache.
“Is everything ready?” I ask. “All the dragons and ambassadors and whoever else are, uh, assembled?”
Rowan nods. “There’s going to be speeches,” he says, like he’s delivering bad news. “But I don’t think we can duck out of those. We’re the guests of honor, and all that.”
I groan. With the way everyone’s been treating Rowan, I’m damned sure he could say he had to do his magical portal thing buck-ass naked and covered with gold dust, and no one would dare say anything about it. But I’m not about to give him any ideas.
“Hello?” a voice calls from just outside the tent flap.
I freeze as my body flashes hot, then cold. Footsteps sound on the wooden planks outside the tent, and then her shadow falls across the door.
“Oh, hey, Alindra,” Rowan says, with a wide smile and a note of glee in his voice that makes me want to strangle him.
Rowan glances back at me. I take in the empty wine bottle in his hand, our borrowed clothes spread all over the floor, and the general filthiness of the tent we’ve been given, and I shake my head with a ferocity that could not possibly be misinterpreted. Rowan grins as he turns back to Alindra.
“Come on in,” he says, sweeping aside the door of our tent.
I cast a desperate illusion, covering every damn surface with a facsimile of cleanliness. And myself as well. Sour wine rises in the back of my throat as I come to my feet. Damn it, I wish I could do something about my breath.
Alindra steps into our tent, her hands twisting together at her waist. She gives Rowan a little nod. My breath catches in the back of my throat. At least Rowan is here, my brain stammers. This won’t be quite so awkward with him.
“Well, I’ve got to go,” Rowan announces. “Duty calls, and all.” He turns back to me, and I’m pretty sure he can read all the ways I’d like to murder him written clearly across my face. “Have a nice chat,” he adds, with a wink.
He even pulls the door flap closed after he leaves. Asshole. The tent plunges into shadows. I stare at Alindra, all soft, beautiful curves in the low light, while my mind struggles to remember how to form words. Alindra’s teeth sink into her lower lip, and her gaze jumps around the tent, taking in two beds, the dresser with its washbasin, and the sparkling illusion I’ve just laid over absolutely everything.
“Uh, hi,” I stammer. Like an idiot.
“Hi,” she replies, with a shy little flash of a smile.
