Adeline rolled her eyes.
“Bit old for you, isn’t he? Not exactly your type.”
“Mytype? Charming, dark curls, great laugh, eyes like sunlight and chocolate?” Ger said, grinning. He puckered his lips at her and blew a lazy kiss. “You of all people should know that’sexactlymy type.”
Adeline wrinkled her nose; if she really wanted to, it was easy to forget she’d ever held a romantic thought in her head for Ger. But there was a time –yearsago, mind – when her stomach had dissolved into a cloud of butterflies every time she saw him, when she hadn’t been able to help but whisk him behind a tapestry or pull him into a dark corner of the palace to steal a few breathless kisses. Back then he’d been Gerard, the irresistibly handsome and charming Gard in training, but now he wasGer, lovable oaf and her very best friend. The memory of those dark corners and their roaming hands made her squirm.
“You know I don’t talk about that.”
He wiggled his eyebrows again, even more suggestively now. “Nah, you just fall asleep dreaming of it.”
She kicked him under the table – maybe alittleharder than the playful nudge she’d been trying for.
“Shit,” he hissed through his teeth. “It was ajoke,Ade!” Ger winced, ducking in his seat to rub at his shin. He peered over the edge of the table, eyes slitting.
“Why are you so grumpy today?”
“I’m sorry,” she muttered.
“Yeah, you sound it. Really, what’s going on?”
She sighed and got up, dragging her stool around the table to sit beside Ger. Adeline reached for his leg and pulled it up into her lap, then planted a kiss on his shin like he was a child who’d fallen over.
“Better?”
He gave an indignant sniff, but said; “Better.”
She shifted his leg off her lap and folded her hands in its place.
“My father thinks I should campaign for Heir.”
Ger just looked at her, and when she didn’t elaborate further, he frowned. “And?”
She frowned right back at him.
“What d’you mean ‘and’? That’s it. He ambushed me about it over breakfast this morning. My mother put him up to it of course, but he agrees with her so there’s double the pressure - ”
“Adeline,” he interrupted her, waving a hand. “Wait. With everything that’s happened between you and Mareda, with how she’s treated you and how she’s handled the public court in the Queen’s absence... are you telling me you’re still going to concede to her?”
“She’s my sister, Ger.”
“And this is yourKingdom, Ade.”
The jovial warmth he usually radiated was suddenly drawn in, like someone had pulled down the shutters behind his eyes.
“Please tell me you’re not going to throw away your shot at the crown because Mareda’s throwing a tantrum? Surely Eisalaan’s future deserves more consideration than that.”
“It’s not like that at all, you’re not being fair. The people love Mareda.”
He scoffed. “The people love her pretty face. She’s a lovely, distant doll to them. She’s basically an ornament wrapped in glitter, hanging off the balcony on New Winter’s Eve. Mareda is part of the Eisalaan fairytale. You’re part ofEisalaan, just as much as me, and Imogen, and that fellow over there.” He pointed randomly across the bar, and a sodden, white haired old man peered blearily up at them over the rim of his pint glass.
Adeline’s lips twitched, but Ger went on. “Don’t underestimate the importance of your life outside the palace. You know this country. You could be great, Ade.”
He was so earnest; it was unnerving.
“Ger, I - I can’t,” she said, faltering. She didn’t have anything else to say. What he said made a bewildering sort of sense and she didn’t want to look at it too closely.
For once he didn’t push her, just sat back and took a deep sip of his cider. He nudged her own tankard toward her and she drank. Ger licked sugar off his lips.
