My insult was met with silence, and when it finally grated at my will enough that I looked down at Evander, he was staring at me and his bright eyes had gone watery. There was nothing but pure defeat on his face.

Something about the way he’d given up on picking a fight deflated my anger.

“That was unkind of me to say,” I said.

He shrugged. “But not untrue.”

“My mother always says you should always serve truth salted, if you must serve it at all.”

He craned his neck at me. “Is the salt supposed to be kindness or cruelty?”

“Kindness. Don’t you like salt?”

“Well, yes, but preferably not in my wounds.”

“Hm.” I’d never thought of it that way.

“I can’t lie, so I can’t tell you I don’t still love her. But I intend to work on getting over it.”

Something about the genuineness of that statement tugged at my heart. “Will you arrest her if you catch her?”

Silence.

“Hm.” Okay, the anger wasn’t completely gone.

“I want to get to where I can promise that to you. I’m just not there yet.”

“The fact that she’s a thief and a murderer isn’t enough? How many crimes must she commit before you rid yourself of her affections?”

“Technically,” he said, “she’s not a murderer.”

“Alright. So she’s an incompetent murderer. I can see how that might be attractive.”

A grin broke out over Evander’s face, and I might have let it lift my spirits. Only a little.

He nudged my knee with his elbow. “I got something for you. As an apology present.” Evander shifted on his feet before standing.

“You don’t have it with you?”

“It’s downstairs.” He examined me, the way I sat upright in my chair, hardly moving, and a shadow came over his face. “Hm. I got so excited with the idea when it hit me, it didn’t occur to me you might not feel like walking downstairs. I could…carry you?”

I shook my head ferociously. There was no way. Not only would that be humiliating, I was fairly certain sitting upright was the only pain-free position available to me at the moment. I would know, because I’d tried countless others, as the soreness from sitting in the same position had settled into knots in my back.

Peck cleared his throat. “If you’ll forgive my interjection, Your Highness, I believe I might have a solution.”

Evander nodded, and Peck scurried from the room. He returned a few moments later, pushing a chair that sat on two wheels.

“Did you make that yourself, Peck?” I asked in astonishment.

The feathers on Peck’s neck bristled. A sign of embarrassment amongst his species? “I enjoy woodcraft in my spare time, my lady.”

I grinned. No wonder I liked him.

The two males hoisted me into the rolling chair, a task I was certain either one of the fae could have accomplished by themselves, except that both insisted on helping. Perhaps male fae and human men had more in common than I had thought. I tried to bite back a groan as they moved me. Though Peck had used magic to heal my wound, there was still a lingering soreness.

“Ready?” Evander asked once they settled me in. He didn’t wait for my response as he wheeled me out of the room and into the hallway.

The stairs might have been more of an issue if Evander’s body hadn’t been a monument to strength and agility. As we reached the stairs’ edge, I opened my mouth to protest, but Evander spoke first.

“So I can bounce you down the stairs, or I can carry you. Your choice.”

My immediate reaction was to make him turn right back around and deposit me in my room, but I was curious about his present. And I’d been cooped up in my room for so long by this point…

“Carrying me it is,” I made sure to say glumly.

Evander looked as though I’d made his year.

Before I knew it, I was being cradled in Evander’s arms and carried down the steps. It didn’t exactly hurt my stomach as much as I expected it to. When we got to the bottom, I insisted he let me lean against the wall rather than him setting me on the ground.

Once he retrieved my chair, we wound through countless hallways, and for the first time I felt like I was getting the impression of exactly how large this castle really was. It seemed to me that this place was spacious enough that one who lived here might have never even entered some of the rooms.

“Have you explored all of it?” I asked, and my voice echoed off the stone wall of the particularly empty corridor we had just entered. It wasn’t decorated with tapestries or busts like the rest of the hallways, which gave me the impression this part of the castle went unused.

“You forget I was a child here once,” Evander said.

“Was?”

“Must you always be so condescending?”

“Yes. I must,” I mused. “Have you brought me back to this light-forsaken part of the castle to murder me in the shadows where no one will hear my screams?”

“Well, the screaming was the part that ruined my plan when I sent my henchwoman to kill you the other night,” he teased.

I stifled a laugh. Partially because I was still aggravated with him for not giving up his feelings for a murderer. Partially because laughing really, really hurt.

When we reached the end of the corridor, Evander opened the door to a narrow staircase. This time, I was ready when he hoisted me up and carried me down. To my surprise, the stairway led outside.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

Evander pushed me down a pebbled path that led to the castle’s south entrance, where a guard nodded and opened the iron gates for us. When he lead me through, I realized that this portion of the gate lead straight into the art district of town.

“I always saw the walls when I visited here, but it never occurred to me how close you lived to the city all this time,” I said.

“It’s an ancient city. The rulers of old benefitted from keeping it under such strict observation.”

My chair bumped and vibrated as we wended our way through the streets, shooting needles of pain through my abdomen. But I tried to ignore it. If Evander noticed I was hurting, he might try to turn back, and I was thrilled to be back in town. In my favorite part of town, of all places.