A feeling I didn’t deserve or dare to name curled low in my chest at the thought. Busying my hands, I picked up another piece of bread, spread it with Thistle’s herbed butter, and hoped the movement masked the slight tremble there.
Quinn composed herself as if preparing for a royal address. “It is rare for me to dream,” she confessed.
“Maybe it was the moonfruit cordial,” I offered, biting into the bread.
Her eyes caught mine, something unreadable behind them. “Perhaps.”
But I wasn’t convinced.
Thistle returned to the table, flopping down with a grunt that defied her stature. “If either of you starts serenading the other, I am sending Vesper in with a bucket of water.”
“I’m inclined to allow it,” Vesper said from his perch, not bothering to open his eyes.
Quinn shook her head and reached for the teapot. She was still pink-cheeked and avoiding my gaze. And I was grinning into my bread like a man who had just been told he had twoweeks left to live and had decided to enjoy every second of it anyway.
Whatever the dream had been, it was hers.
But my name in her mouth?
That was mine.
The morning air promised warmth too soon, spring masquerading as something gentler. Thistle led the horses out from her half-collapsed stable, reins looped loosely in one hand. I waited near the front door, already pushing the limit of the tether, a half-chewed sprig of mint clamped between my teeth. Thistle insisted I chew it “for nerves and nausea.” She hadn’t clarified which ailment she thought I suffered from.
Quinn was still inside—either gathering the last of her things or avoiding me—likely both. She’d barely looked at me since breakfast. While a sensible man might’ve felt guilty for teasing her, my lack of sensibility allowed me to be shameless. The way she’d said my name played over and over, the chorus of a new song I was desperate to learn the rest of the lyrics to.
Beside me, Thistle tightened the buckles on a saddle, only half paying attention, the movement so familiar it required none of her focus.
“She’s something, that one,” Thistle said with the casualness of discussing the weather instead of a cursed, centuries-old woman.
I snorted. “She’s a complication.”
“Since when did you avoid those?”
“Since they started coming with spells and magical tethers.”
Thistle chuckled. “She’s beautiful.”
“She’s awkward,” I countered, tugging the girth more forcefully than necessary.
“It’s possible to be both.”
“I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”
“No,” Thistle said, untwisting a tangled stirrup leather. “But you didn’t say it was a good thing, either.”
The truth scratched, brambles against my skin. I huffed a breath, stepping back from the horse. Quinn had overcome my defenses with record speed. “She’s…” I started, then stopped, brushing dust from my palms. “She’s not what I expected.”
“I think you like her, Mav.”
My glance skittered to the open window. Vesper was yammering about star-blood and “the indignities of low shelving.” Quinn’s laughter followed, unguarded and bright. I closed my eyes for half a second and let the sound settle in my chest.
“She is in there, talking to a cat that thinks he used to be a star,” I said, nodding toward the cottage.
Thistle waved a dismissive hand. “Vesper only lies about petty things. He really was a star once. Probably still is in his own mind.”
“Right,” I muttered. “And I’m the king of all lands.”
“No,” Thistle said, passing me to adjust the bridle. “But you used to be someone with purpose. When you were a knight?—”
