She smiled innocently at him. “Are you sure you don’t want me to snuff out the light?”
“I am very sure,” he said.
Five minutes passed before Asherton muttered a swear and turned down the lamp, plunging them into darkness. Apparently, he thought his chances were better in the dark.
Magdala pressed her face into her pillow and laughed.
Near midnight, Magdala awoke to frog song and footsteps. Something scraped behind the wall. Memories of her childhood ghost reared up, and Magdala sat up, the hair on her arms standing on end. She wanted to cuddle under the covers as she had as a child and wish the ghost away, but she remembered that she was a bodyguard now, and she had a duty to perform. Clutching her shotfire in one hand and her knife in the other, Magdala tiptoed across the room to the door, but the corridor was silent but for creaking beams and scuttling mice.
Before returning to her bed, Magdala locked the door and pushed a chair under the knob for good measure.
Chapter 14
Magdala awoke to find the prince’s bed empty, the blankets rumpled. Pale, pink sunlight fell upon a heap of books on the floor, next to a burned-out candle. Asherton hadn’t slept well, apparently.
Anton snarled at Magdala from the nightstand. He’d grown overnight and was the size of a housecat now, his teeth like ivory nails. The teapot lay beneath him in shards; his roots curled around the side table, leaving long scratches in the paint.
Swearing, Magdala scrambled out of bed and tripped over the pile of books. “Curse you, you messy little … agh …” She stripped off her sleeping clothes and scrambled into her tight black trousers and a black shirt. If Zephyr caught her asleep while Asherton roamed the island alone, he would be furious, and Magdala admitted to herself that the immortal frightened her. She didn’t want to be the victim of another of his withering scowls.
The door creaked on its hinges as Magdala eased it open and peered out. The corridor was dark, not a mouse stirring, so she padded through the quiet house to the kitchen.
She found her boots by the open door, a chicken roosting atop them.
“SHOO!” Magdala cried, waving it away. It clucked indignantly and flapped its wings, then strutted into the pantry.
“Noooo,” Magdala groaned. Her instinct to get the hen out of the house overcame her duty to Asherton, and she chased after it. Squawking, it clattered into a corner, where she managed to scoop it into her arms.
As she tossed the chicken outside, she glimpsed Asherton striding toward the greenhouse. Magdala jogged after him. She suspected that, however long she worked for the prince, she was going to spend most of her time running.
“Your Highness! Wait!” she called.
Asherton didn’t slow or even acknowledge Magdala’s existence. She noticed that he was barefoot again, his shirt untucked and unbuttoned.
“You are a monster,” Magdala panted. “Expecting a woman to sprint across the yard after you when she hasn’t even drunk her camfe yet. Slow down!”
With a persecuted sigh, Asherton stopped and looked over his shoulder at her. He started, raking his eyes over her disheveled clothes and rumpled curls. His expression shifted, but Magdala couldn’t parse it. If she didn’t know better, she would have said he liked what he saw, but she knew better. Self-conscious, Magdala smoothed her hand over her hair, only for it to bounce back as disordered as before.
“Don’t judge me,” Magdala said crossly. “You aren’t even wearing shoes. I’ve only been awake five minutes because you snuck out while I was sleeping, which you know you’re not supposed to do.”
Asherton let out a cold laugh. “Despite what Zephyr might think, I am a grown man, and I’m going to be a king in four weeks. I don’t have to listen to you.”
Magdala moved closer to him, so she was looking up into his face. “If you don’t listen to me, I will quit. And if I quit, my replacement will put a knife right here …” She stabbed her finger into his chest. “…the first day he arrives.”
“I think I might prefer that to these games.”
“What games?” Magdala smiled.
Asherton let out a long breath, turned, and strode away, faster this time. He didn’t slow until he reached a towering hedge maze behind the greenhouse.
Magdala remembered the maze from her childhood, but it had been only hip-high then. Now, it grew taller than her head, thick and untrimmed, the pathways narrow and irregular.
“You shouldn’t be out this early,” Asherton said as he wandered down the path. “Algie is still about.”
Magdala pushed a springy branch aside. “Who is Algie?”
“The ghost, if you will.” So therewasa ghost at Elegy after all. Magdala wished her father was here to see her vindicated. “He’s a nix,” Asherton added.
Magdala had read about nixes and nixies before—vicious aquatic faeries that dragged swimmers under water and drowned them. Elegy Island seemed a logical place for one, though her father had never mentioned it. She shuddered. “What are you doing out here, then?”
