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The table. The note.
The light behind Bastian obscured his expression as he reached down and picked up the paper. “Curious,” he said softly. “I don’t remember this.”
Frozen, she watched him like a mouse before a hawk. Fear flooded her system, rooting her in place.
His head turned, the angle of it making his face visible beyond the glare. Her same Bastian, too handsome by half, his dark eyes searching. “When did you get this?”
Lie, lie, lie, the thought coming quick and so loud she thought maybe the goddess in her head was joining the chorus. But Nyxara was quiet, now, as if She could only speak with the night. “Found it in a book,” Lore said, cobbling something together. “I think it was from earlier in summer.”
His gold-sheened eyes narrowed. Bastian looked at the note again, then tucked it into his pocket. “Interesting.”
Lie, distraction; Lore took his hand and tugged it so he sat on the bed. She sat up, kissed his cheek, and wished it was just for changing the subject, or just because she wanted to, and not for a messy tangle of both reasons.
Bastian smiled, the warm and unguarded one she remembered from before he became King, the one she’d seen so rarely and treasured every time she did. “Good morning to you, too,” he murmured, his hand cupping her cheek.
His skin was warm against her own, calluses gentle on the curve of her cheek. He’d gotten them boxing; she wondered suddenly if he missed that, sneaking down to the docks to get the shit beaten out of him. His small chosen penance for the privilege of being born royal, born with the knowledge you’d never have to worry about being warm in the winter or fed when you were starving.
She knew what he was going to do, recognized the warmth in his eyes, for the moment still familiar. Their kisses had been few and far between, and she couldn’t keep herself from comparing his to Gabe’s. Gabe kissed hungry. Bastian’s were gentler, not tentative, but not forceful, either. If kissing Gabe let her desire lead, kissing Bastian let her curiosity. One she wanted to consume, the other she wanted to explore.
Bastian leaned forward, so subtly she couldn’t see it, could only tell by the way his breath felt stronger against her mouth.
But he didn’t kiss her. They stayed there a moment, so close that one wrong move would send them crashing into each other, but he didn’t kiss her.
She thought of the night of their engagement. When she tried to kiss him, and he pulled away. Of the night he let her, and it stopped almost as quickly as it started.
And she thought of the voice in her head, how she was certain now that Bastian had one, too. What was it—He, she knew who it was as much as she knew the identity of her own mental passenger—telling Bastian?
She waited for Nyxara to say something. Offer some sort of advice. But there was nothing, as if the sun in the window washed Her out.
Bastian straightened. His eyes narrowed, slightly, flicking across her face as if she were a book to be read. His mouth opened; he took a breath.
The door opened. A servant whose name Lore didn’t know, a pretty girl with big blue eyes and dark hair, carrying a tray with a smell that made Lore’s stomach growl. She placed it on the table by the door, curtsied with her eyes sliding curiously between the King and his betrothed, and left.
“Eat quickly,” Bastian said, following Lore to the tray to pour himself a cup of coffee after she’d made her own. “We need to leave within the hour.”
“Where are we going?” she asked around a mouthful of cherry tart.
“Summer progress starts today, beloved. You desperately need to keep better track of your social calendar.”
“Maybe I should stay here.” She needed to be researching, needed to be finding answers, not gallivanting around Auverraine with a bunch of nobles who didn’t even like her. “I’m sure none of your chosen courtiers really want me coming along, anyway.”
Weak.
“No, Lore, you’re coming.” His voice was playful, like they were just bantering for the sake of it, but his eyes were cool. “Anyone who makes you feel unwelcome can come speak to me about it.”
She chewed the corner of her lip.
Bastian smiled. “The garden could always use more statues.”
All her dresses were already packed, a bit of industriousness from Juliette that Lore should really have expected at this point. They were riding out at noon, accompanied by a handful of Presque Mort and a few courtiers handpicked by Bastian.
Bastian left as the maids descended with the instruction to meet him down in the foyer in no less than two hours. It seemed like plenty of time, but Juliette’s pinched expression as she surveyed her hair said that the other woman doubted her ability to make Lore presentable within such constraints.
Lore’s hair was partially braided into some intricate knot before she finished half a cup of coffee and found her voice. “So where exactly does one go on summer progress?”
“Through the estates that have volunteered to be part of the journey,” Juliette said, frowning at a particularly recalcitrant strand. “If I remember—the Demondes, the Viscount Allairs, and Lord and Lady Leclaire.”
Juliette rattled off the names easily, for all her show of having to recall them.
