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“You idiot!” she exclaimed, her eyes snapping to his in dismay.

He gave her a teasing grin. “Let’s get out of this library today,” he said.

“And go where? It is freezing outside.”

“A walk in the gardens?” Callan suggested.

“Again, it is freezing outside,” Scarlett argued, flipping the pages back to where she was in the book.

“You have fire magic. You can keep yourself warm,” he pointed out, glancing at her fingers.

“I have fire magic that I am still learning to control and would never use around you right now,” she said flatly.

“I am getting restless here day after day,” he grumbled, leaning back in his own chair and stretching his legs.

She studied him for a moment before sighing and saying, “All right. Let me get my cloak, and I’ll meet you at the bridges in a few minutes.” She grabbed two of the books off the table for ‘light reading’ as she called it and disappeared out the library doors.

Ten minutes later, they were out in the gardens of the palace. She was bundled in a fur-lined cloak, the hood pulled up over her silver head and her hands shoved into the folds. “I don’t know how I let you talk me into this,” she muttered. “I hate the cold.”

Callan chuckled as they meandered down a worn path between hedges and flower bushes. “Or you have been spoiled by a fire palace. It gets just as cold in Baylorin.”

“I hated the cold there, too,” she grumbled, pulling her cloak tighter around herself.

“You are in a mood today,” he observed. He might be missing Baylorin, but he was savoring every moment with her, out in the open, no secrecy involved. And with each day in the library, with each informal dinner, she let a little more of herself out of whatever cage she maintained. She lowered the mask a little more.

She scowled at him from under the hood and continued walking in silence. Snow was falling gently around them. Big, fluffy flakes that were getting caught in her hair that flowed down over her shoulders and out from under her hood. She suddenly said softly, “You are ready to return to Baylorin.” A statement, not a question.

“Why do you say that?” he asked, reaching over and plucking a snowflake from her hair. It melted instantly against his fingertips.

“I can tell,” she said with a shrug. “Extended vacations sound nice in theory, but in reality…” She shrugged again and gave him a knowing smile.

She wasn’t wrong. While a month or two of not being noticed had been refreshing, playing house guest was growing tiresome. He was ready to go home. He sent correspondence to his father weekly, trying to justify his prolonged absence, but his father’s patience was growing thin as well.

“And you? Are you not ready to return home?”

She stiffened slightly at his question, her shadows seeming to shudder. “While I will return to Baylorin, I do not know that I will stay there,” she finally replied.

“What do you mean you will not stay there?” Callan demanded, stopping dead in his tracks.

She paused and turned to face him. “I mean I do not know that I can entirely be myself there.”

“But you can here?”

“Callan, look around you. There is magic everywhere. No one bats an eye at my shadows or fire or water.I mean, for the love of Saylah, I’mFae. My entire being is changed when I am there.”

“And what of Cassius? And Nuri? The orphans?”

“I said I will return, Callan,” she snapped. “But when things are taken care of, I do not think I will stay.”

“You mean you will come back here.”

“And if I choose to do so?” She crossed her arms, tapping her foot in frustration. The pose and movement were so familiar to him. An action he’d seen her make a hundred times when they’d been theorizing about what was happening in the Black Syndicate.

“And what of me?”

“You are the Crown Prince. You shall one day rule as king. Nothing has changed for you.”

“Everything has changed,” he countered. “Everything has changed if you are not going to be there.”