Gur growled.
“He’s not a golf cart,” she said. “He knows where we’re going.”
“What’s a golf cart?”
“Oh, just get up here. We’re wasting time.”
Kaelan heaved himself up, seating himself much farther back than necessary. She drew away from him even more, until her knees were locked over Gur’s hindquarters.
Kaelan twisted to look at her over his shoulder. “Are you going to tell me why you’re angry?”
“No,” she said. “Gur.”
Gur launched from the cave. Magda dug her fingers into his fur, crouching low between his wings as he flapped rapidly to pick up speed and then glided over the water. The waves were violet-hued in those whispering moments before sunrise.
Though they weren’t touching, she could feel Kaelan emanating discontent.
North along the gray crags of coast, where the water was the silver color of her mother's eyes and the air cooled to an autumn crispness.
When they set down in an apple grove around noon, for a quick break before they headed out to sea, she dropped off Gur’s back end. Hero disembarked from her with great speed. She chose a likely tree and tested her new courage by climbing as fast as she could.
Honey and Damion were already on the ground. Anqa preened her russet and gold feathers.
Kaelan was not put off though. He climbed the tree after her. Apples dropped down in droves as he ascended.
“Those were all the best ones,” she said to him, balancing with a foot on two different branches.
He glowered at her, his back to the trunk, blocking the way she’d climbed up. “I thought you hated heights.”
“I thought you hated apples,” she said, plucking a fine pink and gold one from the branches, “imp.” She took a big, crunching bite of the apple, but the flavor was lost on her.
A shadow passed over his eyes. And she hurt, because he hurt.
Damn him.
“What’s going to happen,” he asked, “when we meet this witch?”
She sighed. “You really wanted to talk about the witch?”
One of his arms clung loosely to a branch over his head. The rest of his frame leaned against the trunk. “I don’t know what I want to talk about. What happened? Something changed. I wish you’d tell me.”
She took another bite, chewing slowly as she considered her words. “I’m going to try for the Crown,” she murmured, “when the time comes.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because it’s the only way to truly change things,” she said. “And . . . the King . . .”
“What about him?”
She crunched into the apple, gazing down at the ground, utterly unafraid. Once, not so long ago, the very idea of climbing up a tree and staring down at the ground, nonchalant, would’ve paralyzed her. But now, thanks to Kaelan, the fear was simply gone. She was grateful, but it unsettled her. He wasn’t just a peculiar Pixie Prince who was in love with a nymph and didn’t want to be claimed. He was here to help her, and he had been helping her, but he was also making her life all the more difficult.
“What if Endreas becomes King?” he asked. “Will that change whatever it is you’re planning?”
She sighed. “Why do you keep asking about him?”
“He’s my brother.”
Chewing seemed safer than speaking, so she filled her mouth with sweet apple flesh.
