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Whoever occupied those quarters must have water magic, given how brightly green and lush the ivy was. Several long vines already curled around the balustrade before hanging down off the sheer edge, swaying romantically in the wind.

But lush and vibrant as they might be, those vines wouldn’t hold Veyka’s considerable weight, and they certainly would snap the instant I challenged them to mine.

Veyka lifted one pale white eyebrow. “Up to the challenge?”

“You are a menace.”

She dropped the hand that had pointed to the center of her chest. Her eyes gleamed wickedly as she traced the outline of her breasts, down over her stomach, to the apex where her legs joined. “If you do this for me, I’ll let you have a taste.”

Sexual favors in exchange for my magic.

I wished it was the worst bargain I’d ever struck.

My eyes must have given my answer—burning with desire—because Veyka drifted back a step to give me better access.

Summoning my magic was like breathing. I could not remember a time before it had been a part of me. Even before I knew how to wield it effectively, I’d felt its hum. My earliest memory was sinking my hands into the soil of my mother’s rose garden and watching the bushes burst into bloom, in the dead of winter. I was four years old.

I lifted one hand, extending my middle and index fingers. I traced a spiral in the air, slowly, watching and waiting. Far above our heads, the vines of ivy began to move. At first, it looked like nothing more than a strong wind, swirling around them. But then the vines thickened, multiplied, stretched.

In less than a minute, they’d reached my hand, curling around my extended fingers, then my wrist and my arm, down to my shoulders so they held me fully. I heard Veyka suck in a breath—whether she was surprised or impressed, I didn’t know. But when I turned back to her and offered my hand, her eyes were bright.

Not quite glowing.

But the nearest thing I’d seen.

Oh, yes. My Queen liked power. That was why she trained so hard in the sparring ring, and why she was always so damned wet for me. It was why she didn’t turn away from my beast when he growled his need for her. I took a deep inhale, scenting the tang of her arousal.

Veyka sunk her teeth hard into her lower lip, enough to add the scent of her blood to the thick air around us.

She placed her hand in mine, let me pull her tight against me, and we were off.

I’d often wondered what it would have been like to be gifted with wings instead of fangs. This was as close as I’d ever come, soaring over the edge of the Effren Valley from one balcony to another on the strength of the vines I’d fortified with my own magic. I willed them to shorten, to contract so that we travelled up, up, up. Veyka clinging to my side was another element of delicious torture.

She resolutely kept her face turned out instead of burying it in my chest, unwilling to show even a modicum of fear.

But when our feet touched the balustrade, she slithered free of my grip too soon. Not from the desire to be away from me. But to stand on solid ground.

She crept over the edge, planting her slippered feet firmly on the goldstone floor of the balcony. I did the same, taking more care with my booted feet, sending the tendrils of ivy that had transported us spiraling away silently.

The entrance from the veranda to the apartments was framed with a wide, colorfully painted arch, a gemstone the size of my fist embedded in the goldstone at its apex. There were a few feet on either side between the edge of the arch and the balustrade. That was where Veyka went, pressing her back flat against the goldstone wall.

I followed, attempted to do the same, and found the space severely lacking.

Veyka made no sound, but I could feel the tension in her body as my hands closed around her shoulders, urging her to stand perpendicular to the wall so I could slip in behind her. Even this way, we were packed together to avoid being seen.

Curtains billowed across the open arch, partitioning the balcony from the rooms beyond. But they were white and transparent and would provide no cover for two large, muscular forms such as ours.

Between those strips of translucent white, a conversation floated on the wind. I tensed, channeling my magic to summon those vines once again and spirit us away. But Veyka leaned fractionally closer, angling her head so her delicately pointed ear, studded with sparkling amorite, was able to hear more easily.

We were not sneaking in, I realized. The room was already occupied. The way that Veyka settled herself against the wall, letting it take some of her weight, told me that she’d expected as much.

It took me a while to recognize the two voices.

“Health to the queen.” Male.

“To the royal councilors who run our fair kingdom.” Female. Followed by the clinking of glasses.

Esa. The one who’d been so clearly flustered by my presence at the council meeting. She’d been holding court over the petitioners herself for months, until Veyka and I took the dais. Not just a royal councilor, butdonna, its leader.