“Like what?”
“That loved each other.”
I feel a pang of homesickness for the kind of family I had before all of this. I hadn’t appreciated the rarity of it until it was gone.
Emmett spreads the feast out over the blanket. Food that looks close enough to the sandwiches back home, but the tea cakes smell of raspberries and rain and are covered with candied flowers. Emmett peels one off and pops it into his mouth.
“Will you tell me about the last two years?” I ask.Will you tell me if it’s too large a gap to close, if I’ll ever find my way back to you?
He leans back on his elbows and brushes his hair behind his ears. It would be so easy to pretend we were in Hyde Park now, under a familiar sun.
“I think I’m quite good at it, actually.”
“At what?”
“Being regent.”
I smile. “I have my own confession.”
He raises his brows.
“I’m not a bad queen.” It’s the first time I’ve said it aloud, the first time I’ve admitted it to myself, actually.
He grins, showing off his perfect teeth. I’m particularly fond of his canines, which are just slightly too sharp.
“I never doubted you.”
I take a sip of something fizzy from a bottle and Emmett takes the moment to just look at me.
“How is Pig?” he asks. “I should have asked that the first moment I saw you.”
“You were too busy accusing me of being a selkie.”
Emmett plucks a blade of grass and picks at the white root. “Sorry about that.”
“Pig is well,” I say. “Misses you, though.”
“I miss him, too. No one here keeps pets. They think it’s undignified.”
“Nonsense,” I say. “Pig is so much more dignified than you.”
We exchange stories of dealing with disgruntled nobles and sleight-of-hand diplomacy. He listens, rapt, while I tell him of our plans for a national railway, and I’m equally fascinated by the way he describes the court politics of the Otherworld.
He explains that in the spring of last year he and Lydia threw a revel so grand, it sated an ambitious lord who sought to replace Emmett as regent.
Emmett hasn’t just helped Fennick and Nan; he’s ingratiated himself with all of the Little Londinium businesses, and done a lot of dealmaking to establish him and Lydia as respected rulers.
Emmett reaches into the pocket of his coat and pulls out a package, wrapped in waxy paper, about the size of an apple.
“I wanted to show you this place isn’t all bad.” His voice goes a shade softer.
I peel back the edges and find a globe of whisper-thin glass. Inside is a pink flower, with six stamens pointing up from the center.
The stamens glow orange and I gasp in surprise.
“A preserved lux flower,” Emmett says. “The center glows according to your emotions.”
“What does orange mean?” I ask.
