“Fine,” he answered.
I frowned. “You’re not a great liar. You look like horseshit.”
He did not.
The top buttons of his tunic lay open, and a stray curl snuck across his forehead. Deliciously rumpled.
Behave, behave.
The light of morning should have made it easier to keep my mind from wandering.
“It’s hard to want to sleep,” he admitted before sitting on a stool at my side. His fingers clasped together and unclasped. He never stopped moving. It had to be exhausting.
“Oats and plums?” I offered him.
He scrunched his nose. “That’s what you’re eating?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers. Has your palate so quickly turned royal on me?”
He laughed and placed both palms down on the butcher block. “I rarely ate breakfast—I’ll just have some tea.”
The way he talked about himself in the past tense, as though the before version of him was someone different, made my frown deepen. I recognized that feeling.
The kitchen heard his request, and the kettle rose, pouring steaming water into a cup and floating it to him.
He skeptically took it and added tea leaves.
I rested an elbow on the counter, and faced him. He assessed me like a wild animal that might pounce.
“You need rest before we head to Algarnd. We don’t need to leave until this afternoon.”
I would fly to the West’s capital by Griffith and let Lark Shadow Emmerick with her. His running on no energy would do us no good when we arrived in a less-than-hospitable Corridor.
Our gazes locked over the teacup, which looked far too small in his grasp. I smirked at the touch of mauve on his cheeks.
“I’m fine, really,” he argued.
He wouldn’t win this one. “I am your advisor. I will be the judge of that, and I say you need sleep.”
His brows lifted. “You still want to be my advisor?”
“Oh, puppy, did you really think I would pass up the opportunity to watch you squirm in your kingly finery?”
His cheeks darkened more as he stared into his tea.
“Don’t act strangely,” I demanded. I wouldn’t let one bad idea snowball into losing his presence in my life.
“I am not acting strange,” he retorted, still observing the brown liquid like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. He’d not been this shy the night prior when he’d told me to take my clothes off.
“Yes, you are,” I argued. “Again—poor liar.”
He rubbed his eyes. “Elsedora... it’s been mere days since I woke up, and we’ve already seen each other nude. What am I to think or do about that?”
When his hand fell away, he finally met my gaze, his expression unreadably flustered. He didn’t seem angry, or upset even, just bewildered.
I smirked. “Well, simply stop thinking about me naked,” I teased.
He ran a hand down his face once more with a groan. “Well then, you stop hiding behind cavalier remarks to make me blush.”
