“You really need to be more careful, darling.”
That voice. Low, smooth, and far too familiar—the kind that sinks into your bones and stays there.
I look up.
Half-shadowed by an ancient birch, he’s impossibly tall and devastatingly handsome, with tawny skin, dark hair that brushes his shoulders, and a devilish smile accented by twin dimples and a shadow of stubble. He wears work boots and dirt-stained trousers. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows, and paint smudges his fingers. A gardener’s garb, but there’s somethingotherabout him. Shadows cling like companions, and even the sunlight seems to bend away, as if it knows better than to touch him.
My heart lurches. “You,” I say, breathless.
“Me,” he replies, his smile slow and wolfish. Twin dimples flash like the curve of a secret.
For a moment, I just stare. The sunlight slides down his cheekbones, catching in the strands of his dark hair and streaking it with gold. There’s a smudge of soil near his jaw and another on his forearm. A leaf clings to his shoulder like even the plants want to stay close.
He doesn’t let go. His hand is still at my waist, the other braced behind my back, steadying me like I’m something easily breakable.
“You’re…” I falter, searching for the right word. “You saved me.”
His eyes flicker with recognition, though not surprise. He releases me gently, and the absence of his touch is like a cold wind against my spine.
I steady myself, cheeks flushed. “Last night. The garden. That was you.”
He doesn’t confirm it, but he doesn’t deny it, either. Instead, he turns and paces away to kneel beside a bed of violet roses as though our moment never happened.
I stand frozen and fuming. “You’re not even going to acknowledge it?”
He glances back over his shoulder, eyes full of quiet amusement. “You’re still breathing, aren’t you?”
Theaudacity. I huff and stalk toward him, the ridiculous shoes biting into my ankles with every step. “These damn—”
My heel catches on another root, and I yelp, pitching forward.
But he’s already there, again. His hand shoots out, catching my elbow. This time, he doesn’t smirk. He only kneels and deftly unbuckles the strap of my shoe.
I blink up at him. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” he muses. “You’re clearly at war with your footwear.”
He slips the shoe off, then the other, and sets them aside in the grass. His thumb grazes the arch of my foot in a single, fleeting touch that feels anything but accidental. He’s quiet, deliberate, infuriating—and yet no part of me wants him to stop.
I press my feet into the soil, grounding myself. Finally, I can breathe again. Let the king marry a girl who wears high heels and has perfect posture. I prefer tofeelthe earth as I walk.
He watches me for a long moment, his head tilted as if he’s reading a language written across my skin, taking in my relief. I wonder if he can read my emotions like Marb, but his earsare rounded, human. “Fine jewels, dresses, shoes…” He shrugs. “They’re not what pleases the king, anyway.”
I freeze. “You know the king?”
“Everyone in the keep knows the king.” He picks up a pair of shears from the stone bench and turns his back to me as he carefully prunes a deep red bloom. “Though some better than others.”
“I take it you’re the gardener?”
“Among other things,” he says, voice like velvet slipping across stone—smooth, rough, darkly warm. “Like patrolling late at night for firelings who are supposed to be asleep in their quarters. Tell me, darling, do you just follow any mysterious bright lights you see?”
I just stand there, speechless.
“This place is very dangerous,” he continues after a moment. “You shouldn’t wander around alone after dark.”
“Are you offering to be my tour guide?” I quip, then immediately regret it when I see the way his eyes darken as if to say,Don’t tempt me.
“Magic lives in every breath of this place,” he says quietly. “It tests all those who enter—and it always recognizes weakness.”
