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She went to bed around midnight most nights. I rarely crashed before six. “I don’t sleep much.” Not when my stomach roared every morning at ten. “And before you ask, the number and size of the diamonds was absolutely necessary. I’ve seen you drain, Valesco: if I’d tried a set of tiny little teardrop earrings, it would have exploded.”

In actual fact, I doubted she needed three lines of brilliant-cut diamonds set in platinum with a few pearls, but I looked intothe vault, and this one stood out as the one she was least likely to freak out about. It would suit whatever pink, demure little dress she planned on wearing tonight. Thankfully, I’d only spelled the necklace rather than the entire parure. The set included matching earrings, a brooch, a bracelet, and a tiara. I grinned as I imagined what she might have said if I’d brought the tiara.

Given the fact that I’d robbed her of speech and movement, I stood, took the necklace, and circled her chaise. She needed the protection. And maybe, just maybe, I needed to see her with a Regis family heirloom around her neck.

I leaned in to clasp it, the distinctive smell of the ocean on a sunny summer day floating around her, and I had to brush some of her hair aside to see her straight, dainty neck. She had the posture of a queen.

Kleos turned to look at me, her hand slowly moving to the necklace around her throat. “I can’t keep this.”

I decided not to argue. “But you’ll wear it tonight.” That wasn’t a question. I could see it in her eyes.

She loved it. She’d wear it anytime she could. She just didn’t believe she ought to accept a gift of this magnitude.

We’ll train that out of you, love.

Just because she wasn’t mine to keep didn’t mean that she shouldn’t learn how a man ought to take care of her. She deserved diamonds and pearls and sapphires and magic.

“I don’t even know how to start thanking you.”

“Then don’t. Thanks are boring.” I shrugged. “Bake me something.”

“I’m not going to just bake you something for letting me borrow precious stones filled with beautiful, priceless, innovative magic that ought to be patented.”

I pouted, exaggerating it to look like Phobos before dinner. “That’s not worth a pie?”

“It’s worth far more than pie, and you know it.” Kleos chuckled, then her eyes focused on my hand.

Ah.

She’d seen it. I was hoping she wouldn’t.

I resisted the compulsion to hide my hand behind my back like a child caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

“You didn’t wear a signet ring before,” she noted.

“I’m aware.” She wasn’t going to drop it, was she?

I was unsurprised when she continued, “Ronan has one, right? And Cassius.”

“All members of founding families do,” I replied cautiously.

“But I’ve never seen it on you,” she insisted. “Is there a reason you’re wearing it these days?”

Curious little cat, always putting her paw right on the one thing that she shouldn’t. “Yes, there is.”

I left it at that, because, “Well, I figured I ought to have the tools ready in case I needed to enslave you before someone else could,”wasn’t going to get me any pie.

“Let me guess.” She smiled, rolling her eyes a little. “It’s a dark family secret, and if you spill, I’ll owe you my soul.”

I smiled. “Precisely.”

Kleos kept asking all the way back to the vale, naturally. “Come on, tell me. Why is everything so secretive about the founding families?”

I smiled back. “Ask me about another secret. I’ll tell you.”

Kleos was far better at pouting than Phobos, or me for that matter. “That only makes me more curious about your rings. But fine. Is it really true you can do whatever you want? As far as the law is concerned.”

That was a lot easier to answer. “Not quite. We have the duty, and the right, to handle any matter that we consider important for the good of Highvale. There are a few rules, so it’s notcompletely unrestricted. For one, we can’t take on members of the ruling council without the approval of the council.”