The servant left with a bow. Edric turned back to Quinn and took her hands again.
Saints, can this man not touch her for one damn minute?
“Although I’m quite thrilled to see you, my dear Quinnie, what brings you here after all this time?” he asked.
Quinn lifted her chin. “I am hoping you can break the spell.”
Her words landed like a thrown gauntlet.
Edric faltered. His expression stayed composed. His body betrayed him: the tightening of his fingers around hers, the flicker of something dark behind his eyes, the sudden set of his shoulders. And then, just as quickly, the mask reset.
“Of course,” he said in a tone entirely too casual for the level of request Quinn had made. “We’ll discuss it more thoroughly at breakfast. This evening has already stretched long, and you must be tired.” He dipped forward in a final flourish and brushed his lips across her knuckles.
Again.
I wanted to rip him away from her. My nails cut half-moons into my palms. I didn’t believe a single word he’d said. Not the regret. Not the remorse. Certainly not the concern. Nothing about this man was sincere.
Every instinct I had screamed the same truth:
Quinn was in danger.
30
QUINN
The castle was as ostentatious as memory warned. It managed to be both undeniably beautiful and irrefutably hollow. I had walked these halls in another life when I believed the capital might yet be mine to inhabit. Now, the shine read as an apology, the grandeur as a shallow plea for my forgiveness.
“Quinnie,” Edric began. “Before we make our way to your rooms, there’s something I’d like to show you.”
I gave a dip of my chin in acknowledgment, though it seemed he was determined to follow his course of action regardless of my response.
Edric led us down another endless corridor. I was about to ask how much farther when he slowed, the echo of our footsteps dying beneath the vaulted ceiling.
“Ah,” he said, voice laced with quiet satisfaction. “Here we are.”
At first, I thought he meant the tower. Then I saw it. Stretching across the wall beside us, two stories tall: a mosaic rendered in thousands of tiny tiles, each meticulously placed.
The likenesses were unmistakable.
Edric, his hand outstretched, his expression noble and triumphant.
And beside him?—
Me.
The breath stuttered in my throat. My face, my eyes, immortalized in stone and glass. The artist had caught the pale curve of my cheek, the fall of my hair, even the tilt of my chin with unnerving precision.
I felt Mav go rigid beside me. When I dared to glance his way, he looked as though he might be sick.
Thistle broke the silence first. “Well,” she said, low and wry, “I guess that explains why everyone was staring at you in the market.”
Branrir cleared his throat. “When did you, uh, have this…masterpieceassembled, dear king?”
“It was meant to be a wedding present the first time around,” Edric replied, face tightening with the words. “Remarkable craftsmanship, isn’t it?”
Mav scoffed, mumbling to Vesper. “I’ve heard of keeping portraits of your exes, but this is outrageous.”
Vesper released a sputtering, hissing laugh.
