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I gripped his hand tight, keeping our fingers threaded together, wanting to glance over and make sure she’d noticed. Which, yeah, I knew was beyond childish, but… Well, I knew what a fucking catch he was. Sweet and generous and un-fucking-believably gorgeous. Eager and passionate in bed. Funny in his own understated way. Hard-working and determined and stubborn in a way I admired.

And mine. He was mine.

I was a little scared that she was going to suddenly realise she was desperately, madly in love with him after all, in the relatively short time it would take us to walk to the crossing and part ways.

And then what if he realised the same thing? What if he suddenly realised that he really did want to marry her and have lots of babies together and become Spring King? What if he didn’t want me anymore, because I’d been an asshole to him for years and all I’d really offered him was… sordid fuck sessions at a sleazy motel?

Shit. Fuck. I knew now that Crossbody wasn’t a snob—not too much of one, anyway—but surely he wanted better than that. He deserved better than that. And Ianthe was a goddamn princess. She could give him fancy clothes and nice jewellery and they could vacation together in the Summer Court. I mean, it was the Summer Court. Who wouldn’t want to vacation there? It was probably like a permanent beach resort or something.

That’s not going to happen, I reassured myself, exhaling a slow, silent breath as we walked through the town to stop my thoughts from spiralling any more out of control. There’s no way he’d want to stay in Otherworld. And she’s in love with someone else. She said so.

That daunting little word—the L one—made me clench up with a disconcerting blend of terror and unbridled joy. I automatically gripped Crossbody’s hand tighter, and he glanced over at me with a questioning smile to make sure I was alright.

I grinned back, stroking my thumb over the pulse point of his inner wrist. “You okay?”

“Yes.” His smile widened, and he leaned closer, his shoulder bumping mine as we walked, to kiss my cheek.

I could tell he meant it. It was weird how well I could read him now, considering how many years I’d spent unable to figure him out at all.

Clearing my throat, I forced myself to gruffly ask, “How ‘bout you, Ianthe?”

“Oh, I’m marvellous,” she replied cheerfully, strolling along the cobblestone path on the other side of Crossbody. “I can’t wait to get home and find Chrios.”

“What will you two do?” Crossbody asked her with a polite smile.

“Elope, I imagine.” She sighed dreamily. “Or perhaps I will do what you did, Elvis, and renounce my title. I don’t care about being a princess. Honestly, it becomes considerably harder to believe in the sanctity of our royal families and supposed gods-blessed right to rule once you start hearing about things like democracy in the human world.”

He chuckled. “Indeed.”

I nudged him gently with my elbow. “What if you’ve started a revolt among the young fae royals? Maybe you’ll be the catalyst for Otherworld’s entire monarchic system getting dismantled. That would be awesome.”

“Then the Winter King might send Carl’s brother after me,” he joked, but I tensed up, not finding it all that funny.

Maybe I’d try and subtly bring that up with Carl at work next week. Get him to keep an eye on his vampire assassin brother for me.

“Do you see the stone building over there with the greenery on its roof?” Crossbody squeezed my hand to get my attention, pointing with his other at a wide, ornate structure in the distance that looked massive from here. And on its roof was—

“Greenery?” I echoed in disbelief. “That’s a… Is that a fucking forest growing from the top of it?”

Crossbody laughed. “Just a very small one. I wouldn’t call it a forest. More like… a decent-sized copse.”

“Uh, sure.” A copse on a roof. Sure. All very fucking normal.

One of our neighbours at the trailer park had had a dead possum on their roof for so long it’d mummified. It had actually been a bit of landmark for the locals. When I’d once offered to get it off the roof and bury it or something, all of them—including my own uncle—had looked at me like I’d threatened to shit on everyone’s doorsteps.

“I used to love going for walks up there.” Crossbody sighed wistfully, but his expression wasn’t sad when I side-eyed him to make sure. He was smiling.

He was also walking much, much slower than I would’ve liked. I clutched his hand tighter and flicked a nervous glance over my shoulder at the palace, which was—in my opinion—still worryingly close. The queen’s guards—or god fucking forbid, the queen herself—could show up at any minute and do something to him.

“Looks pretty.” I tried to subtly increase our speed. “Hey, when we get back, why don’t we—”

“Does any wildlife live up there, Elvis?” Ianthe asked cheerfully, also taking her sweet fucking time, strolling along the path, pausing to look at flowers, even waving at some of the locals who stopped and watched.

I gritted my teeth. “I think we should maybe hurr—”

“Some, yes,” Crossbody replied, all relaxed and calm, his thumb stroking absently over mine. “Obviously everything that flies has no trouble reaching it. But there is also a small pond up there, and the frogs adored it. And the— Oh, look.”

Once again, he squeezed my hand and pointed—this time at a bunch of tall boulders jutting up on a hill in the distance. He actually came to a complete stop to show me, so I sighed and tried to calm myself down after glancing back at the palace again. We were a decent distance from it, at least, so we’d have plenty of warning if anyone did come after us. And I knew Crossbody was a good runner—he spent most of his time at work on the damn treadmill.