She moved away, bending with only a little difficulty to collect her disassembled carpet bag from the floor, and quickly pulled the threads taut, reshaping the small luggage. She was aware of the prince’s eyes on her as she worked, but did her best to ignore him.
Quickly, she removed her few items from their hooks—including Miss Huda’s unfinished gown—folding them on her bed before tucking them into the bag. She reached for the apple crate next—
“What are you doing?”
She was tipping over the crate, dumping its contents into the bag, when she felt his hand on her arm.
“Why are y—”
“You will not listen to me,” she said, pulling away. “I haveasked you several times now to leave, and you will neither listen nor sufficiently explain yourself. As such, I have decided to ignore you.”
“Ignore me all you like, but why pack up your things? Have I not made it plain that I need to search them?”
“Your arrogance, sire, is astonishing.”
“I apologize, once again, for any inconvenience my personality has caused you. Please unpack your belongings.”
Alizeh clenched her jaw. She wanted to kick him. “I have been dismissed from Baz House,” she said. “I cannot return to work. I have little time left to vacate the premises, after which I must, with all possible haste, run for my life.” She yanked the quilt off her bed. “So if you will please excuse me.”
He moved in front of her. “That’s absurd. I won’t allow that to happen.”
She stepped aside. “You do not control the universe, Your Highness.”
“I control more of it than you might consider.”
“Do you even hear yourself when you speak? If so, how can you stand it?”
Improbably, the prince laughed. “I must say, you are a surprise. I’d not imagined you’d be so quick to anger.”
“I find it difficult to believe you imagined me at all.”
“Why?”
Alizeh hesitated, blinking up at him. “I beg your pardon? What reason would you have to wonder about my temperament?”
“You need only one? I have many.”
Alizeh’s lips parted in surprise. “Are you making fun of me?”
He smiled at that, smiled so wide she saw the white flash of his teeth. It changed him, somehow. Softened him.
He said nothing.
“You are right, in any case,” Alizeh said. “I am not usually so quick to anger.” She bit her lip. “I fear there is something about you that makes me angrier than most.”
He laughed again. “I suppose I should not mind then, so long as I am memorable.”
Alizeh sighed. She shoved her small pillow into her bag, snapped the overstuffed bag closed. “All right, I w—”
There was a sound.
A distant creak of stairs, the sound of wood expanding and contracting. No one ever came up this far, not unless it was absolutely necessary—and if someone was here now, it was without a doubt to make certain she was gone.
Alizeh did not think before she reacted, instinct alone activating her movements. Indeed it all happened so quickly she’d not even realized what she’d done until her mind was returned to her body, sensation returned to her skin.
She felt him everywhere, all at once.
She’d knocked them both back into a far corner of the room, where they now crouched, and where Alizeh had cloaked their bodies and her bag with invisibility.
