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“Or eighteen times-”
“But the point is-”
“What is the point?”
“I’ve rather forgotten,” one of them said, and then the other turned and fixed us with a smile.
“Your brother didn’t wear a crown when he visited us,” she accused Mathias.
“I heard you tried to poison him, Zovisasha,” he responded easily, and the black-haired woman gave a guilty shrug. I eyed the jar of herbs clutched in her hand with alarm.
“Justonecup of tea before we go, Your Ruthlessness,” she said coaxingly, mischief flaring behind her eyes. As I prepared to call on every scrap of diplomacy I’d ever learned in an attempt to get out of drinking anything she prepared for me, I felt Mat stiffen at my side.
“Iknowthat name,” he said.
So did I. It sounded like the nonsense Starling used to call me.
The door at our backs opened to let in a fresh gust of cold air.
“I hope you’re not expecting me to curtsy, prince,” came a voice behind us, speaking Quarehian. Mathias sucked in a surprised breath.
“Would be nice,” I retorted on instinct, staring at the girl I’d thought I’d never see again as she strode into the room and tossed her fur coat over the back of a chair as if she belonged here. Her frizzy brown curls sprang free as soon as she removed her hood. “So this is where you ran off to, Estrella.”
*
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Star?” I croaked, half-convinced she was an apparition I’d dreamed up from the stress of our journey. Maybeallof this impossibleness was a hallucination, including the revelation that my two oldest friends had apparently lain together in direct violation of Mazekhstani laws – multiple times – and didn’t give a shit that I’d declared my love for another man. But the tight hug Starling pulled me into disabused me of that notion, if only for the fact that ithurt.
“You’re pinching me,” I complained, yet she justshhhed me, clutching me tighter and continuing to painfully squeeze my arm.
“I’m just making sure this is real,” the healer murmured, her thoughts seemingly drifting in the same direction as mine. “Isn’t that what they say to do when working out if something is a dream?”
“Yourself,” I protested. “Not someone else.”
“Oh.” She finally let me draw back, a wicked smile on her face. “Maybe that’s why it never worked.”
And then there was lots ofcan’t believe you’re heres andI’m sorry I left yous andlook at the state of you– that last one being directed entirely one way from her to me.
“Well,really,” Starling said, planting her hands on her hips and giving me a disapproving glare in that no-nonsense way of hers that made her utterly terrifying. “I made it here without looking like a leprous rat dragged through a ditch, and you’re a fucking prince.”
I raised my hand to give her the finger. She slapped it away.
I expected Ren to protest the insult or the violence – he liked to imagine he had the monopoly on both of those when they were aimed at me – but when I glanced around I found he’d been backed into a corner by Zovisasha and Lilia, looking suitably distracted and half-horrified as they look turns in fawning over him and yelling at him in that personality-swapping peculiarity they adored so much. Lilia had her arms draped adoringly around his neck, pretending to nibble on his ear, while Zovisasha jabbed a finger into his chest and screeched at him in rapid Mazekhstani for thenerve of it allin daring to kidnap me. Yet even as I watched, Lilia’s fingernails began to dig into Ren’s collarbone and she hissed out angry words aboutstealing friends and fucktoys, with Zovisasha instantly softening and starting to stroke his hand. His head swivelled between them, eyes wide, mouth open, and yet not saying a word.
It seemed Ren had finally met his match in flirtatious capriciousness, although the fact that it had taken two of them to rival him made me smile.
“How did you find them?” I asked Starling, who hummed out her amusement as she watched my friends, who were apparently nowourfriends, ruthlessly torment the prince.
“We found each other,” she told me. “I’d spent the journey north healing those I found in need, and by the time I reached Stavroyarsk I’d depleted my magic. Stupid.”
“Selfless,” I corrected, and her mouth twitched.
“Well, I was barely able to keep my eyes open or my feet beneath me. Ended up damn near fainting in the main square. While it was Blessed amazing not to be looked down on just because of my gender, my skin colour was another matter. Anyone who got close enough to realise I was Quarehian under my furs backed away again pretty sharpish. Except those two.”
She nodded at the others. “They brought me out of the snow, gave me a place to recover, and I...never left. I’ve been able to pay them for board and food by doing some magic for the rich families who don’t have their own healers, but when we realised who the other was, I don’t think any of us would have let me leave.”
Star punched me lightly on the shoulder. “I didn’t need their names to know they were the ones you told me about back inla Cortina. You have good taste in friends.”
