“Don’t be, Highness. It’s your job.”

She handed him the reins and mounted her horse. Her complete confidence in his abilities unnerved him as much as it comforted him.

Everyone was ready but for him. Instinct led him to put his left foot in the stirrup. He did and hopped up, throwing his right leg over the saddle.

“Like riding a bike,” Jeremy said. “If the bike could bite you. Let’s go. You lead,” he said to Tempest.

She ignored him. “Your orders?” Tempest asked Rafe. He looked at Jeremy, who only shrugged as if to say, Don’t look at me. You’re in charge.

“Um…Lead the way?” Rafe said.

“Yes, sir.” To the others, she said in a commanding tone, “Ride on.”

With a kick of her heels, Tempest shot off down the path.

Rafe looked at Jeremy. “You a prince too?”

“What? Me? No.”

“Oh, yeah, because that would be ridiculous.”

“It would,” Jeremy said. “I’m a knight.”

—

Hooves and earth. Sweat and snot and flying chestnut mane. Rafe leaned in, clung to Sparrowhawk’s mane, all on instinct. It felt like when he painted or carved…his body remembered what his mind couldn’t. He did know how to ride a horse. Knew how and loved it. The exhilaration, the speed, the wind in his face, and the incredible power of the animal under him. Grief and joy warred in his heart. Joy of rediscovering what he’d lost. Grief when he thought of the past fifteen years and what he’d missed out on. After all, you didn’t have to be rich to own a horse in West Virginia.

They passed through the forest in what felt like the blink of an eye. From forest to river’s edge and then along the banks of a river flashing silver and gold in the evening light. Finally a village or something appeared in the near distance.

Tempest called for a halt, and they reined in the horses and trotted across the stone bridge.

Sweating and tired, Rafe was grateful for the small break.

“What’s happening?” he asked Jeremy, who trotted his horse over to him. It was strange to see Jeremy so comfortable in the saddle, like he was born on a horse.

“Water break for the horses.”

They rode into the town. Everywhere Rafe looked, it was like seeing a page from a book of fairy tales. Small colorful cottages, thatched roofs, stone bridges, and cobblestone streets, old women sweeping the dust from their front porches with witch’s brooms. A blacksmith’s shop. A bakery. Children, free and fearless, running barefoot from house to house. He smelled chimney smoke and the sweat of horses. The setting sun over the distant hills turned the clouds to watercolors.

“Where are we?” Rafe asked Jeremy.

“Sleepy Creek,” he said. The clopping of the horses’ hooves on the cobblestone was a sound Rafe had heard only in films. But it was exactly the same. “We’re halfway to the palace.”

Jeremy swung his leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground, then grabbed both horses by the bridles and led them to the water.

Rafe dismounted Sparrowhawk with a groan.

“God—” he said with a half-strangled scream as pain spiked up his entire body, from his feet to his neck. If his muscles had been twigs, they all would have snapped. “Ahh…that is…not good.”

“Don’t worry,” Jeremy said, patting Sparrowhawk’s panting chest. “It only hurts the first time. That’s a lie. It hurts every time.”

“Highness?” A small voice spoke behind him. Rafe turned and saw a woman of about forty years old wearing a green velvet gown that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a Renaissance Faire.

“Me?” he said. He would never get used to it.

She stared at him with wide eyes.

“Prince Rafe? Is it you?” she asked.

“I…yes?”

The woman ran off, calling out, “The prince has returned! And our knight!”

Quickly, a crowd formed around them, a few dozen men and women, some with children perched on their shoulders or babies in their arms. They were all dressed like characters from books or old paintings except they were all ages and races, as if someone had gathered lost souls from every corner of the globe and dropped them into this old English village and said, “Welcome home.”

Impossible, wasn’t it? The uncanny feeling passed quickly when Rafe saw their eyes full of fear and hope.

The townspeople wanted nothing from him but to shake his hand and pat his shoulder. Jeremy’s too.

Welcome home, Highness. Oh, we’ve missed you, Sir Jay. Come to dine with us when you can, gents. We’ll roast a goose for you and have a dance.

Rafe caught himself smiling, greeting them like old friends.

“Highness?”

He turned toward a soft voice from behind him. The girl who’d spoken had a smudge of flour on her cheek, as if she’d run there from baking something.

“It’s really you?” she asked.

“Really me?” he asked. “I hope so.”

“You’re Prince Rafe?” Then she looked up at Jeremy. “And the Red Knight?”

“We are,” Jeremy said, answering for him.

She clasped her hands as if in prayer and hopped on her toes.

“You don’t remember me, I know, Highness. It was so long ago. Mama said you rode two villages over at night to fetch the midwife when I was being born breech and brought her back just in time to save us both. Mama asked you to name me.”

Rafe wanted to remember so badly it hurt. He wanted to remember that night ride and the panic he must have felt and the beautiful relief of returning in the nick of time. He wanted to remember hearing the baby’s cry, holding her, and naming her. What would he have named a baby girl?

“You’ve forgotten. It’s all right,” she said. “It was such a long time—”

“Firefly,” Jeremy said into his ear, which activated a very old primal memory.

Rafe said, “Kaylee?”

A smile wide as the horizon spread across her face. “You do remember.”