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“I didn’t do very well, did I?” Archie tried amicably.
King Randolph shook his head. “You have some raw potential. Perhaps you could be a huntsman or even a true champion someday, though . . . I don’t think you are being completely honest with me, and you know how I feel about liars. If I find you have caught my daughter’s attention by some unnatural means, I’d like you to also know I have the skill to defend my own.”
Archie grimaced, but the king didn’t wait for a response, and the knight came to thump him on the back a moment later. “Good job, lad.”
Archie couldn’t hide his disbelief.
Sir Callum shrugged. “He’s the king. And he spends more and more of his time in the practice yard since his wife and son passed. You were never going to win but kept your feet and didn’t let him rattle you too much. That might be the best you can hope for with him.”
You were never going to win . . . That seemed to be a running theme when it came to his current dealings with the royal family. He could keep swinging his staff, shooting his bow, but there were so many lies and harsher truths stacked against him, ready and waiting to come crashing down. What if his brother was right, and Ainsley only cared for him because she was bored? What if the king was right, and she only cared for him because of something unnatural, something the cat had done? Was there any way Archie could ever know for certain?
Any magic the cat used and all the masks Archie wore couldn’t possibly last forever.
The princess waved her hand from the crowd. Had she been watching too? She must have been, and her smile was more than radiant. Maybe she liked him as an ogre, just as much as she liked him as a huntsman, but it still wasn’t quite enough. “Archie! Get over here. You’ve beaten everyone else already, and we need to clean you up for the play.”
And just like that, he was forced back into another fancy outfit and ushered over toward the open outdoor stage. They started Anderdolf the Dwarf, and he waddled around on his knees. He heard a steady stream of laughter or sighs from the eager crowd.
The children came on stage to tackle him right on cue.
But when he said the dwarf’s words to the princess, the rest of the world seemed to melt away. “I longed for you to see and accept me as I was, but under the cloak of the pen I had to remain.”
They had reached the final few lines, and Ainsley leaned down again, but her arms were firmly at her sides. He could see her teasing and open smile, daring him to kiss her. Really kiss her. Not the stage kiss they had rehearsed. But a real, steal-your-breath-away kiss. Right here in front of everyone.
Including her father. The king.
And Archie couldn’t do it. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to. It felt wrong, for even more reasons than simple propriety. Anderdolf the Dwarf might have earned his happy ending, but that didn’t mean Archie ever would. He wore so many masks that he wasn’t entirely sure himself which one was true, but he knew he wasn’t the proper huntsman the princess wanted.
He wasn’t an ogre or even a noble dwarf.
So he put up his own hand to cup and hide both of their faces, stage-kissing the princess like the coward he still was.
Chapter 21
Like Cats and Dogs
Leo had arrived late to the Spring Festival, and he was already sick of it. Tabitha would never venture into a crowd like this, and no matter what the cat did to help Archie now, the boy would not stop sulking. Even when the princess had the miller boy sit with her at the feast and brightly asked for him to teach her one of the peasant dances—a maypole dance meant to mimic the Wild Hunts where the faerie rings would open. The young men and women chased each other around in an endless circle of colorful ribbons.
Screams and happy chaos broke out whenever someone was “accidentally” caught.
Men chased women, like men chased after the fae. Or was it the other way around?
Again, Leo saw a dark forest. Emerald eyes. “Hunt the rats, my little prince. Kill them, or your curse will never end.”
Leo shook his head. Cat eyes weren’t as good as human ones, focusing only on movement. The colorful images were blending together with a few of Leo’s elusive memories, and he took it as a sign that he should take a break from the festival and the ungrateful miller’s son.
Leo dodged the feet of the crowd to make it to the castle gates, still standing open as the evening had started to fall. Something teased at his nostrils, sweet and sour like rotten fruit. Or like a plague rat. He glanced over at the table laden with a collection of food meant for Carabus.
Would a display like that attract the vermin?
He turned his tail to investigate. He could use a good hunt. And as if summoned by the thought, a hound bayed in the distance.
That was when the screaming began.
* * *
The hounds had gone completely feral. At least, that was the only thought Archie had before he was called into the fray. He retook a staff to bash one hound and then another, somehow standing side-by-side with Declan and bizarrely grateful to have a real enemy to fight. He could even appreciate the skill the young lord had with his belt axe. One dog fell before them and then another. Anything to preserve the peace of the kingdom and Castletown.
Ainsley was safe, quickly surrounded by a pack of her guards. And Leo was . . . tangling a pair of feral hounds with the colorful maypole ribbons.
