“Have you been to the Deer Court since then?” I ask August. He nods. “And did you see Asmo, Holly, Ivan, or Luca while you were there?” I press.
He shakes his head slowly. Hope spreads through me. Maybe, just maybe, we convinced him.
“That’s because they’ve been with me. We’ve been in hiding around the court while we healed,” I say. “Ask me anything. Something only I know.”
He hesitates, then says, “Tell me of our first date.”
“You mean your only date,” Asmo says wryly.
August ignores the comment, still staring at me with his arms crossed.
“You took me to the lagoon in the woods. I got scared. I thought you were leading me to my death or something because of how dark the forest got,” I recall with a snort. “You had a picnic—kind of—set up. There was a canoe. We got in the canoe, but you left the picnic basket on the shore. You?—”
He strides toward me and grabs my left hand. Asmo tenses beside me.
“You’re not wearing the ring,” he says. He yanks the scarf from my neck. “Or the necklace.”
I don’t even know what happened to my wedding ring. I shiver as I think of the weight of the sigil. I can’t imagine how it must be to constantly wear a necklace made of dark magic.
“No, I don’t. Because I’m not the one sitting on that throne,” I say softly.
August sinks into the chair, putting his head in his hands. He runs his fingers through his hair, then looks up at me. “Okay, fine. I believe you.” He looks at Asmo, then me. “You trust him?”
I nod firmly. “I do.”
My net snags on my own lie, as if reminding me of the truth. I may be beginning to trust him, but I don’t fully. Not yet, at least. I’m not sure it’s a luxury that I have.
August’s jaw clenches once, but he nods firmly. Acceptance. My knees threaten to give. “Okay. Now what?” he asks.
“We need your help,” I say. “Is there another place we can talk?”
August funnels us away from The Fox Den, its wooden interior now replaced by shades of gray stone.
“Welcome to my humble abode. I’ll have to show you the bedroom another time, Mae,” August says with a wink as he drops his hands and backs away from us. The flirty comment is so quintessentially Augustthat it fills me with a weightlessness that’s been missing since before the wedding.
I gawk at his “humble abode.” The living room is the size of my entire house in Pinebend. Rough stone covers the floor and travels up the walls, all the way to the domed ceiling. Oversized windows line one wall, offering a view of the slope down the mountain to the frozen river. From here, it looks like the thinnest of lines wending through the valley.
“Are we inside of the mountain?” I ask.
“Bit bigger than the mountains in the Deer Court,” August says, plopping onto a massive fabric sectional in the center of the room.
Asmo surveys the room, hands clasped behind his back. “A little darker than I thought the Golden Prince would have,” he mutters.
August shrugs. “Nothing I can do about the stone. Since, you know, we’re inside of a mountain. I do try to soften it a bit though,” he says, patting the white couch.
“Do you mind?” Asmo asks, glancing at the large fireplace, also gray. Fresh, unused logs sit in a tidy pile in the hearth. He doesn’t wait for August to respond and instead fires a ball of black flames at the logs. They light, sending a delicious crackling and warmth through the room.
Asmo heads toward the sectional, but before he can step on the rug,his foot freezes mid-air. August’s hand is outstretched as he stares at Asmo’s foot.
“Please,” August says, “no shoes on the carpet.”
I stifle a giggle as Asmo bends down and plucks each shoe off, setting them neatly beside each other in front of the cream plush rug. Holly and I follow suit, placing snow-dusted boots next to Asmo’s.
Holly takes a seat beside August on the edge of the sofa, hands on her knees. She looks more nervous than I’ve seen her in a while. Asmo and I sit on the opposite edge of the sofa, appropriately distanced. I swallow the desire to scoot closer to him.
We quickly fill August in on the last month—mine and Holly’s recovery, learning to use the sigils, sneaking into the tithe, rescuing Cally, and killing the witches. August listens with rapt attention, nodding and grimacing throughout.
“Are they looking for you?” August asks. “Surely they know you’re alive.”
