And then he drained his glass.
***
As you know by now, roads are exceptionally boring. No one wants to hear about them, least of all me, and I love the sound of my own voice.
What isn’t boring, however, are woods.
Everyone loves a good tale where some clever fox or kindly grandmother steps out of the woods, bearing advice and goodwill and what have you. Want to know why? It’s because people are lazy! I can’t tell you how many youngest sons I run into in the woods on a daily basis.
“Dear witch,” they say. “Won’t you help me, and I shall part with the meal my father packed?”
PAH!
Do some research! Invest in a map! Don’t just lollygag about, waiting for some hungry, wise woman to stumble upon you. And don’t count yourself lucky when I do stumble upon you, boy.
“Oh, aren’t you sweet,” I usually end up saying, stroking their cheeks.
And you know, with a good bottle of port, some aged cheese, and my finest cherry jam…they are, in fact, rather sweet.
Chapter 8
IMELDA
The next morning, Imelda pushed open the makeshift curtains of her tent and found Ambrose passed out on a log.
His dark hair fell over his forehead. One arm was propped beneath his head. She noticed that he frowned while he slept, and that he had long eyelashes that lightly fanned over his cheekbones. It struck her like a wave how little she actually knew him. He’d always moved through Love’s Keep like an imposing shadow. She didn’t imagine he could laugh the way he had. Or that the sound of it—like joyful thunder—would be something she wanted to hear again, knowing that her jesting words had been the cause of it. She hadn’t imagined, either, how it felt to beheldby him, even if it was only because they’d needed to jump out a window. She’d felt the hardness of his chest, the heat of his hands on her waist…
And she didn’t mind it.
If her life had gone as planned, would this be what she would have woken up to every day?
Normally, she would’ve balked at the thought of something so staid and routine, but she felt no disgust. Just a strange pang of curiosity…one that would have to remain a curiosity. Yesterday had only proven to her that she would never survive in the confines of a castle. She wanted a life ripe with adventure, where she answered to no one and nothing.
That would never happen if she fell in love.
Imelda took a step backward, only for a branch to snap underfoot.
Ambrose stirred awake. He blinked, staring up at her before scrambling to his feet.
“Imelda?” he said groggily.
His voice was deeper. Rougher. She could feel it resonating in her bones.
“Who else did you expect? I take it you are not a morning person,” she said.
His gaze flitted over her face.
Imelda stiffened. Could he tell somehow that she’d been watching him sleep? She immediately turned before he could examine her any further. In a few swift motions, she’d taken the dresses down from the tent. Next, she pinched the fabric between her thumb and forefinger, and the garments instantly shrank until they were small enough to fit inside the walnut shell that the witch had given her.
“We should get back to the road,” Ambrose said.
The horse cloak wiggled its hem, as if kicking hooves in its sleep, and murmured,I don’t want to gallop.
“Wouldn’t the woods be safer? Those cannibals might still be looking for us. There has to be another road leading out of it.”
“If we go into the woods, we don’t know what we’ll find. It could be full of beasts or something terrible. We should stick with the plan we were given.”
“How innovative,” Imelda said dryly. “And how did that decision to work with the plan we were given go over at the inn?”
