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“You sound so convincing,” I teased. “Do you not know how to have fun, my prince?”

He fell silent for a moment before he shook his head. “Not lately. Before the Courting Festival, I was preoccupied with fighting orcs and . . .” he trailed off, swallowed. “Doing something for my father.”

His neck tightened, but I didn’t press and ask whatthatsomethingwas. I had a secret too. So I didn’t feel as though he had to tell me everything.

“I think we need to get you some hobbies.”

He laughed dryly. “What about you?”

“I read and sew.”

His brown eyes searched for something more. “Because that’s all you could do for a long time. But now you have an entire kingdom at your fingertips. Is there something you’ve been dying to try?”

I mulled that over for a moment, letting my attention drift to a crowd of faerie younglings, all with shredded wings. All likely victims of the mysterious blight. I hoped it didn’t affect their magic too, but all the same, my heart went out to them. I understood the sense of helplessness that could come with such an issue.

“Learning the sword will be my new hobby,” I replied, never wanting to settle into that helplessness again. “It’s difficult and I’m sore, but I can’t deny that it’s useful, and I had a bit of fun. Especially when I beat you.”

He elbowed me gently. “This will never stop, will it?”

“Unlikely.” I winked at him. “Perhaps I’d like to sail too.”

His jaw tightened. “Sail? I’m afraid I’m not one for the water. Though I’m better on larger vessels.”

That’s right, Captain Barvo had said as much. “Did something happen?”

“As a youngling, I nearly drowned.” Vale shuddered. “Since then, I’ve disliked being dunked in water. Or worse, diving into the depths of colossal bodies of water.”

“Showering?”

“That’s fine. Feet on the ground and all that.”

“Thank the stars. For a moment there, I worried you’d start to stink and as we’re sharing a room . . .” I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t even want to imagine!”

A laugh burst from the prince, the sound so full of life and warmth that it set frostflies fluttering in my belly.

Lunch, regretfully, came to an end, and Vale and I returned to the palace grounds. The entire way back, even as we strode through the castle gates, I’d dreaded walking through the corridors of Frostveil. Of seeing the king, queen, or Rhistel.

“We’ll go this way,” Vale said after dismissing his Clawsguards and leading me not through the front door of the palace, but to the side. He’d claimed to want privacy with his wife and seeing as the prince was on the castle grounds, the Clawsguards were happy to oblige. “There’s a side door, one closer to my rooms. You should know about it. Just in case.”

In case we needed to run. That thought was being drilled into my head. The scary part was that it was valid. It wasn’t so much a matter of ‘if’ I’d be attacked, but ‘when.’

I paid close attention to how Vale swung us around the outside of the palace, through a small garden of winter hedges and pruned trees brimming with red winterberries. Benches completed the look, making the garden a place suitable for quiet contemplation.

“Saga’s garden,” Vale said, noting how I took in the area. “She likes outdoor places to think, so Father had it planted a few turns back.”

“How thoughtful.” I despised the king and hearing about times when he’d been kind shocked me.

“Like I said, he wasn’t always so intense. Nor so cruel.” Vale sighed. “And he’s always had a soft spot for Saga. His only daughter. He’s harder on Rhistel and me.”

I didn’t reply as we exited the garden and he turned onto a path that led right up to a part of the exterior castle wall covered in ivy. Through the green, I spied wood.

“Camouflaged,” I said. “Why?”

“It’s a servants’ door,” Vale replied. “Mother wanted to minimize its appearance.”

Vale brushed aside the ivy tumbling down a trellis. It had to be spelled to stay warm because, though the plant was hearty, few plants thrived in such cold conditions. Not naturally, anyway. I’d learned from Roar that most winter fae used greenhouses, and though I hadn’t seen them on the palace grounds, I suspected they were around. Somewhere on the royal grounds and likely in the city too. There were too many fae to feed in Avaldenn for them to rely solely on imports from the warmer kingdoms.

We entered the castle into a plain stone corridor. If Vale hadn’t already told me that this was a servants’ area, I would have known. The parts of the palace that the royals inhabited were sparkling white and immaculate. With walls of plain gray stone, this area was clean but not as stunning.