The fireplace gave a satisfying pop. Another wave of déjà vu washed over Rafe as he inhaled the heady scent of the burning logs, like smoked brown sugar. He’d stood here before, smelled this scent before, felt this feeling before, that he was where he wanted to be with the person he wanted to be with and all was right with the world. This world at least.

“You could’ve told me.”

“I should’ve told you,” Jeremy said, “but that’s a very awkward conversation to have with someone who hates you. ‘Oh, by the way, I know you think you despise me, but actually you were once madly in love with me, and we used to fool around in the Star Tower so much that Mira, the court astronomer, had the locks changed.’ ” He clasped his hands behind his head and shrugged. “Here’s another bad memory you’ll find in your book. We broke up. We had no other choice, since you literally forgot you loved me. And, it’s no secret I haven’t been a monk since then, and don’t pretend you were either—”

“Monkish,” Rafe said. Then, “Except when I wasn’t.”

“But that doesn’t change the facts.”

“And what are the facts?”

He slipped his hand under his collar and took out the St. Hubert medal he wore. Rafe’s medal around Jeremy’s neck.

“I have always been in love with you, Rafe.”

Rafe needed a moment to recover his ability to speak. “All this time?”

“All of it,” Jeremy said. “Every minute. Every hour. Every day.”

Rafe didn’t know what to say except, “Why?”

“Why?” Jeremy laughed at that. “Why? Do you want the reasons in alphabetical order or by order of importance? Let’s go with alphabetical, because my top ten is a little shallow.”

“How shallow?”

“Number six is your eyes. Number three is your mouth. Number two, never mind.”

“What’s number one?”

“Because I remember who you are, even if you don’t.”

Rafe looked at him and waited for a punch line that never came.

“You mean that.”

Jeremy nodded, then groaned softly. “God, it was easier going in the Ghost Town than telling you that.” Jeremy looked away from him. “I know we had a nice couple of moments back there, namely when you forced your tongue down my throat along with half an apple. But I’m not asking for anything from you. I don’t expect us to pick up where we left off. You deserved to know everything. Now you know.”

Rafe took a deep breath, and said, “You’re being very fair.”

“I am a knight of Shanandoah. We have a code of honor. I don’t remember all of it, but gallantry in matters of the heart was mentioned once or thrice.”

“Do princes have to be gallant in matters of the heart, or can I just order you to kiss me until I forget who I am again?”

Rafe took perverse pleasure in seeing Jeremy dazed and dumbstruck.

“I suppose…uh,” Jeremy said, then cleared his throat. “I suppose if I don’t find that objectionable at all, then it wouldn’t be, you know, un-gallant of you. To give your knight such an order, I mean. We do live to serve. Sort of the whole knighthood gig.”

“Consider it an order then.”

Jeremy sat up a little straighter, then put his feet on the floor, his hands on the chair arms, and pushed himself to his feet. He came to stand by Rafe in front of the fire.

Rafe laid his palm over Jeremy’s heart. It pounded against his hand nearly as hard as his own heart pounded inside his chest.

“Might be fun to fall in love with you again,” Rafe said. “I don’t remember the first time it happened, so who knows…maybe it’ll feel like it’s the first time.”

“Two first times? Now you’re being greedy.” Jeremy leaned close just as the sun sank behind the mountains and the night fell like a black curtain over the kingdom of Shanandoah. He whispered into Rafe’s ear, “But I like the way you think.”

And then Sir Jeremy proceeded—very gallantly, of course—to make Prince Rafe forget his name.

Storyteller CornerAn Admittedly Infuriating Interruption

Very sorry, but we’ll have to close the door here and give our knight and our prince their privacy.

After all, this isn’t that kind of story.

Storyteller CornerA Less Infuriating Interruption (I Hope)

Queen Skya, long may she reign, was so happy her prince and her knight had returned the lost princess to her that she declared fifteen days of celebration. Why fifteen? One day for every year she’d waited for Rafe and Jeremy to return. When you’re a well-loved queen, you can do that sort of thing, and no one says you’re being self-indulgent.

No time to tell everything wonderful that happened during those fifteen days, but I’ll try to hit the highlights.

—

On day one, the good people of Shanandoah gathered together on Halfmoon Hill. At sunset, the Valkyries—looking glorious and fearsome all in white—led a procession into the sacred grove and formed an honor guard.

Then came Rafe, wearing his finest dark green doublet and trousers (trust your storyteller—he looked to die for). Jeremy came next in his favorite black trousers, tunic, and vest, and Queen Skya wore a gown of deepest red. Rafe carried a bowl of water, Jeremy a bowl of fire, and Queen Skya a bowl of earth—the three elements of all creation. Then Emilie, wearing a humble linen gown, entered and stood in the center of the circle. Her hands were empty, to symbolize that she was willing to receive what the Creator would offer her.

Music played, soft strange pagan melodies, and when the song faded to silence, Jeremy began to speak. Although Emilie hadn’t yet learned the ancient language of Shanandoah, the tongue of the one who laid the foundations of the world, she understood the meaning.

And Jeremy said, No one knows the face of the Creator, but we have seen those giving hands at work in the rising and the setting of the sun and the shining of the moon and the dancing of the stars and the finding of the lost. One who was lost stands in our midst and we celebrate that she, at last, has found her way home…

The words sounded like autumn leaves scattering in the wind.

—

On the second day, the four of them rested and recovered from the blessing ceremony, which had lasted until long after midnight. The day was cool and crisp because October in Shanandoah is exactly what you want October to be. Far too cold for their usual game of combat croquet with the Valkyries in the back garden. As night was falling, the four of them retreated to Skya’s cozy salon. Emilie lay on the rug in front of the fire. Rafe stretched out on the sofa. Jeremy took the armchair, and Skya sat at his feet on a silk cushion. As Rafe read aloud to them from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Jeremy took Skya’s long hair out of its braid and gently rubbed her tender scalp.

“Can I get a head massage next?” Emilie asked her sister.

With a blissful smile on her face, Skya said, “Get your own knight, Brat. This one’s mine.”

“Ahem,” Rafe said.

“Sorry, my prince,” Skya said. “This one’s ours.”