My heart aches. “I can’t imagine. Even just knowing how I felt when you were gone, when we hadn’t heard from you…” I shake my head, shuddering until the sound of his heart against my ear settles me.

“Yeah, me neither,” he says, running his hands through his hair.

My heart lurches.

In a moment, I can see them. Our child. A thousand versions of them, a thousand combinations of me and Evander, playing and laughing, giggling before my eyes.

My heart swells, and I realize I haven’t let it yet. Haven’t allowed myself to be excited, not with Evander gone. Not with the fear creeping in my mind that I’d never get to see him lift our child onto his shoulders or tuck them into bed.

Excitement, for the first time, barrels through me. Fear, too. Dread, really. But it all sort of feels the same, squirming in my stomach and filling me with butterflies.

“What is it?” Evander asks, his sea-green eyes swooping down on me, drunk with our reunion.

I bite my lip, grinning.

But then Evander is grabbing my waist, rolling on top of me.

“You’re looking at me like you want to go for round two,” he says, mischief glittering in his eyes.

I laugh, and he presses a kiss to my collarbone, making me dizzy.

The words hang on my tongue, but even as he kisses me, something feels wrong about saying them. Not here. Not now, at least.

Evander and I are going to have a baby. There’s a child that will giggle and laugh and walk and have its own thoughts and opinions growing inside of me, and for some reason that doesn’t seem like the sort of thing to tell your husband in the throes of desire.

No, this is the sort of thing you plan out. The kind of thing you plot, devise a clever way to surprise him with. I’ve been so caught up in the worry that I would never get the chance to tell him, I haven’t even considered how I would tell him.

But then Evander kisses me again, and I realize it will be a little bit before my mind can concentrate properly.

CHAPTER 15

BLAISE

I’m pacing outside of the Othian palace library, trying to work up the nerve to ask Asha, Queen of Naenden, on a stroll.

The funny thing is, this is the sort of thing I would have found simple only a few months ago. I’m aware there are people whose consciousnesses attack them with anxiety when it comes to initiating social interactions, but of my many and various struggles, that has never been one of them.

But I’m usually not extending a social invitation with the intention of luring someone I like to their kidnapping, either, so perhaps that’s the difference.

As I pace, trying to come up with a smooth way to lure Queen Asha out of the palace, the portrait of Princess Olwen that sits on the wall across from the library stares down upon me in judgment. That’s exactly what Evander’s pompous sister would be doing if she were here, and not holed up in a tower made of vines. Vines that probably have perfectly symmetrical flowers sprouting out of them.

I pointedly ignore her.

I suppose I could simply walk up to Queen Asha, put on a disarmingly boisterous smile, and tell her I need to stretch my legs after a long while cooped up in the Queen of Mystral’s dungeon, and would she like to tag along?

But wouldn’t that seem strange to her? I only just arrived at the palace two nights ago, and surely the queen would expect me to want to spend time with Ellie over her. Perhaps I could mention that I would have rather taken Ellie, but she was busy with royalty-adjacent tasks.

Except that would be rude, and just as likely to dissuade the queen from joining me.

I’ve about run through all my good ideas when the library doors open and someone slams into me.

“Watch where you’re going, why don’t y—oh!” I straighten, clearing my throat before I can spew a host of curses at the very woman I’m hoping to charm. “I apologize, Your Majesty. I didn’t realize it was you. I should have been watching where I was going,” I say, giving a bouncing curtsy to the queen, who looks as dazed as I feel.

She flits her hand to the side. “Don’t worry about it. It’s my fault, anyway. One would think at this point I’d remember to turn my head to look, but alas.” She gestures to the side of her face that’s missing an eye.

I’m unable to stifle my laugh, which is unfortunate. Not because the queen seems the type to be offended easily, but because it would be much more convenient for me if she weren’t so stinking likable.

“Actually, I’m glad to have run into you,” Asha says. “Well, not literally, of course. But here we are. I’ve been huddled over a pile of books as tall as I am for the past several days. My back might never straighten to its full height again. Every time I try to make my way out of the palace for a stroll, the portraits of the princess always make me feel like she’s scoffing at me for going the wrong direction. Think you could point me toward the gardens?”

I straighten, shocked by my luck, but I try not to seem too eager. “I’d be happy to. But…would you mind checking out the window? To make sure the sun’s already set.”

Asha turns toward the nearest window, which is curtained heavily (this entire wing is, at Evander’s command). She pulls it aside carefully and peeks out. “All clear,” she says before she follows me heartily to her undoing.

“I’m honestly surprised you want to be out here at night,” I say as Asha and I stroll through the gardens. Even though summer has officially permeated Dwellen, there’s still an evening chill that washes over the land once the sun sets.

I find it invigorating, but it’s rather clear the queen does not. She’s wrapped herself in a burgundy coat, one I’m sure Ellie gifted her, and a fur scarf obscures her neck.

It doesn’t seem quite cold enough for all of that, but then again, I wasn’t raised in the desert either.

It also occurs to me that the scarf covering Asha’s neck might be for my benefit, though I’ve found my cravings, while potent, never seem to get as out of hand as they did for Nox.

As they do for Nox, I remind myself.

As with any time I catch myself thinking of him in the past tense, my stomach twists.

I quicken my pace, making for the tree line.

“I had it in my head that I would love the cold,” Asha says, rolling her one eye at herself. “It always seemed so romantic. All the best stories have at least one scene set in the snow-capped mountains. Maybe the snow is worth it, but I’ve yet to see it, and I can’t imagine it’s worth feeling as though my joints are going to freeze together.”

I let out a half-hearted chuckle, fogging the air in front of me. “Maybe you should take your walks during the day, then.”

She peers down at me, only slightly taller than me, but still. Maybe it’s that missing eye of hers that makes her seem so much taller. “I don’t mind it so much,” she says carefully.

I get the gnawing sensation that her nighttime walk was intentional. That she’s been waiting for a time when I could accompany her. But why?

My gut twists inside me. Asha has a trace of the Old Magic inside her. It knows things, stories, it shouldn’t. Has it seen visions of my plans with Az? Does Asha know what I intend to do, and she’s simply leading me into a trap?

Panic surges inside me, and I find my senses flitting around the garden, focusing in on the rustle of birds in the trees, the gentle hum of earthworms squirming in the dirt, the padding of raccoons among the vegetables.

But I feel no one else.

No one aside from him, at least.

“Are you all right?” Asha’s hand twitches, like she intends to take mine, but she simply frowns and says, “Kiran told me.”

A lump forms in my throat. “About what?” I ask, not because I don’t know, but because I want to postpone the inevitable. The moment the queen attempts to show me compassion the second before I betray her.

“About Nox. Kiran told me. Not everything, but enough.”