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“Well,” I say, unable to help the way my lips curl into a grin. “That seems a shame, given your royal status.”

“Ugh. I’m not even going to let you piss me off.” She shakes her head, stomping forward. “Not this time! Let’s go explore.”

I’m still chuckling as I follow after her, her long legs meaning that she’s able to barrel off without me, forcing me to increase my speed just to keep up.

I don’t imagine those legs in any other capacity. Especially what they might feel like wrapped around my waist.

That would be utterly mental.

“This is insane.” Key runs her hand over the weathered stone wall with an expression of awe. “It’s like a fairy tale.”

“Like a nightmare is more like it,” I mutter, letting my eyes sweep across the wall-to-wall stone. “You want to keep going?”

She turns back, biting her lip. “Is it safe?”

My eyes linger on the press of her white teeth against the softness of her lip for a second too long, remembering how close they’d been to mine. I shake the thought away.

“Just keep close,” I tell her.

I’ve shown her the courtyard and the great hall, even let her poke around for the last hour in some of the smaller rooms connected to it. There’s nothing really notable, like I tried to tell her, but it hasn’t stopped Key from acting like this is the most thrilling experience of her life. Even now, she’s touching the weathered old stone as if it were something precious. I try again to see it through her eyes, remembering how it had felt when I first saw it. Like stepping into another world, almost. Now, it’s just a sore reminder.

“Watch your step,” I tell her, eyeing the weak spots in the floor as she keeps exploring. “The last thing I need is to be fishing you out of a hole.”

I don’t see her roll her eyes, but I can practically feel it.

“Yeah, yeah.”

I watch her wander into the next room, the one that I believe was the main dining hall—hearing heroohs andahhs when she finds the massive oak table that is still miraculously in one piece.

“Lachlan!” She peeks her head back out, her eyes wide as she waves me over. “Have you seen this?”

I shake my head as I follow after her. “I’ve seen it all, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” She nods absently as she runs her fingers over the dusty surface of the table, her brow furrowed in thought. “When did you first come here?”

I frown, thinking. “I was young. So young, I’m not sure I remember the first time.”

“With your dad?”

“Aye.”

She nods idly, her head practically on a swivel as she takes in the room. “I bet it was really beautiful once.”

“I imagine it was,” I note, unable to keep from watching her as she takes it in.

There’s a wide-eyed innocence to Key that I might normally find annoying, but paired with what I know of her—her determination, her loyalty, her strength even in suffering—it actually leaves me a wee bit in awe of her. It feels almost wrong to admit it, even to myself, but with how jaded this world has left me…seeing Key endure so much in her young life and still have this fresh outlook, thishungerfor life…it does something strange to me.

“What’s in there?”

Her voice rouses me from my thoughts as I catch her ducking into the next room—and I hurry after her if only to make sure she doesn’tactuallyfall through the floor. The sun that has snuck through the clouds streams in through the holes in the ceiling, casting light on the decrepit state of what I’m sure was once an impressive kitchen. I find her there, putting her hands on everything they can touch as if she might learn something just from handling anything within sight.

“This is so cool,” she gushes, holding up a rusted saucepan. “Isn’t it?”

“It’s a pot,” I answer flatly.

She purses her lips. “But think of how old it is! This might have made soup for your great-great-great…something-or-other. Isn’t that neat?”

“Neat,” I echo dumbly, her bright smile slightly dizzying. “Sure.”