Zephyr struck a match and lit the kindling. “When I was young, magic was everywhere. All around us, in the blood of almost every child. But because men and women with magic are valuable on the battlefield, the old wars from my youth nearly wiped it from our bloodlines.”
This was news to Magdala. “Oh?”
“Marwenna took the throne when Asherton’s father was killed, and she is very wicked. I would like to see her defeated, and I would like to see Asherton end the war. That iswhere the danger lies, in the threat he poses to the power structure of the three kingdoms and Marwenna’s thirst for victory. Don’t let talk of curses distract you.”
“Can’t Marwenna revive the dead?” Magdala asked. She’d heard legends and rumors of the evil queen with dark magic.
“Maybe. I don’t know,” Zephyr murmured. “Once, a long time ago, she could use her botanical magic to revive the dead. But her magic grows darker by the day, and so I doubt she has the power to revive anyone. But do not mention it to Asherton. He grieves quietly but deeply, and we wouldn’t want to give him some mad hope that Marwenna revived his brother.”
Asherton emerged from the washroom and walked to the window, where he stood in silence, staring down into the garden. A tear dripped down his cheek and he turned away, looking unnervingly soft and human and not in the least like someone who deserved to be humiliated and exiled and disinherited, curse him.
“What is this?” he asked. He pointed to a small cot under the second window near his bed. It had been there all along, but Magdala hadn’t paid it any mind, and apparently Asherton hadn’t noticed it either.
“That’s where Miss Devney will sleep,” Zephyr said.
Asherton glanced back and forth from the cot to his bed only a stride away. “No, she gets her own room,” he said.
“What’s the good in that?” Zephyr laughed. “Bodyguards share their charge’s room. I expect her to be with you every moment, waking or sleeping.”
“Wonderful.” Asherton rubbed his jaw, then rolled his head to one side, like he was working a twitch out of his shoulder.
Zephyr rose. “I’ll make hot chocolate,” he said. “Drink some. You’ll feel better after …” He cast a nervous glance at the armoire, as if the bloody jacket would emerge like a wraith and haunt them. Shaking his head, Zephyr patted Asherton’s shoulder in an unhelpfully masculine gesture, took the jacket from the armoire, and slipped out of the room.
Asherton turned back to the window and watched the garden for a long time, his face set.
Rain drummed against the dark window. With a pang, Magdala remembered curling up in the big bed under warm covers, listening to thunder growling over the distant sea. She imagined that, any moment, her father would come in with a cup of warm milk and a book, and he would sit and read to her until she nodded off, cozy and content, her belly full, her heart at peace.
Her sympathy for the prince fled. Even if she put aside the fact that he was living in her house, he had tossed her off a bridge. If she hadn’t been wearing her cork vest, she would be decomposing at the bottom of the Largotia River this very moment.
Magdala rummaged in her bag for her sleeping clothes—a pair of simple black pants and a loose button-down shirt—and undressed. Under her clothes, she wore a pair of tight black shorts and a brazier. It was designed to supportan active lifestyle, so it left most of her well-endowed chest to the imagination. Still, Asherton glanced away.
“Don’t be shy,” she said. “I’m not.”
“I’m a gentleman,” he said, taking a book from the nightstand and opening it upside down.
Magdala pulled on her shirt and pants and sat on her cot, watching Asherton as he pretended to read. She caught him casting furtive glances at her.
“Don’t you have anything to do?” he asked sharply. “Inspect the windows or sharpen knives or concoct a poison or something?”
Magdala climbed into her bed. “I’ll be right here,” she said in a silky smooth voice. “All night, watching you.”
Asherton stared at her, the book in his hands still upside down.
“Heavens, Your Highness.” Magdala smiled. “What’s wrong with you?”
He only scowled at her.
With a shrug, she reached for the lamp beside the bed. “You should sleep, Your Highness. “
“I prefer to sleep with the lights on.”
Magdala bit her lip. “That’s better, actually. That way I can keep an eye on you as you sleep.”
He swallowed.
Magdala lay back on her pillows. “Goodnight.”
Asherton sat in silence for a long time, his brow shiny with sweat.
