But when she looked up, and found his gaze locked on her lips and his own slightly parted, it didn’t matter. Because Adeline could not breathe.
“I think I do, too.”
???
The glen had dimmed somewhat when they finally pulled apart to a chorus of voices calling their names. The lanterns now cast coloured light on the snow and bark around the treeline, and gold flames burned in small fireplaces that were scattered like dying stars around the clearing.
Ger, Ceri, Alun and a few other Merrow she hadn’t yet met were the last of the group they’d left huddled around the warmth. Ger waved an empty tankard over his head, beckoning with his free hand. Adeline thought Kai lingered at her back, almost reluctant to let her go – but then he did, and her skin was cold where he’d held her.
“Where’s Iseult?” Adeline asked. The last time she’d seen her little sister, she’d been teaching her Merrow playmates how to playWinds and Waters, and the whole lot of them had been weaving in and out of the treeline chanting the old nursery rhyme while Eda watched them thoughtfully. But now, as she took a quick catalogue of the group, Adeline realised both Eda and the children she’d left her sister playing with had gone home. She stiffened, but Ger brushed her concern away with a quick wave.
“Her nursemaid came for her,” he said. “Betty?”
“Bethany.”
Ger clicked his fingers, a gesture of confirmation.
He was handing out clean tin tankards from a basket at his feet, and a large copper pot sat on a plate above the fireplace, wafting a perfume of apples and cinnamon.
“Where did you get a giant pot of spiced cider?”
Gerard tapped the side of his nose. “I am a man of many talents.”
“He went to the kitchens and told Marie you requested it,” said Ceriwyn.
“Lying is one of my many talents.”
He filled a tankard with cider and thrust it into her hands before she could chastise him. Ceriwyn patted the bare stretch of bark beside her, and Adeline sat, glad for the Merrow girl’s quick, fluid chatter as she pulled her swimming head together. The cider didn’t help that. Nor did the shimmering heat rising off the fire. Or the fact that her eyes seemed to move independent of her brain, roving the edges of their small circle to find Kai, drinking deeply from his own tankard and laughing with Alun and another sandy-haired Merrow man. She’d never seen him laugh like that, open-throated and loud, his whole face – his whole body – transformed. His eyes crinkled and softened and his broad shoulders shook and loosened.
And if he caught her staring, he didn’t seem too surprised. Simply held her eye and kept nodding or speaking, still listening, still engaged with his friends. She felt his eyes on her at times too, as she tried to listen to what Ceri was saying about a pet of the Marchioness, whom she professed to hate, but whose sweet antics she described in loving detail.
“You’re not listening at all,” Ceri accused.
“She’s not,” Ger confirmed on her other side.
“I am! The Marchioness’s dog –”
“Mister Flurry is a cat,” Ger said with an indignant sniff.
Ceri tutted and turned in her seat. She drew in a huge breath and called cheerfully across the fire. “Koo! Drop the brooding stares for a moment, won’t you? I’m trying to talk to the Princess.”
A roar of laughter rose around the fire. Ger nudged Adeline playfully in the side and she winced, face burning and tight. She looked up; Kai was laughing that same laugh again, the easy, open one. He winked at her.Winked.Just how much cider had he had? When exactly had they swapped roles? She wasn’t sure she liked being the blushing, flustered one.
She looked hurriedly away.
It was far too hot. The cider was hot, and the fire was hot, and… It was just too hot. She shucked off her cloak and draped it beside her, then snatched up her tankard.
“So,” she said, turning back to Ceri. “Mister Flurry, the cat.”
Ceriwyn beamed.
Eventually Ger tired of all the kitten talk and drifted off to refill his tankard. Barely a moment passed before Kai dropped into the empty seat. Ceri groaned.
“Hello to you too, darling sister.”
His eyes were shining with cider and mirth and warmth. “Adeline.”
She took a sip of her quickly cooling cider. “Mmm?”
