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He slid a pack of cards from his saddlebag. ‘Knave and Fool?’

‘I don’t know what that is.’

‘Then you can add it to the list of things I’ll teach you.’ Wilder honestly didn’t mean to wink. He just… forgot their agreement, for a moment.

But a smile tugged at Thea’s mouth. ‘That’s becoming quite a list, Warsword.’ She finished eating and brushed her hands off on her thighs. ‘Alright, then. How do you play?’

Wilder made quick work of explaining the rules to her, realising that he himself hadn’t played for years… Not since he and Talemir were on the road together and Tal had convinced a group of women to play for their clothes rather than questions and answers.

He shoved that thought violently aside. He didn’t need to be thinking of Thea without her clothes.

When he’d finished dividing the cards by suit and rank and placed one card face down between them, he looked at her in the glow of the fire. Her messy side braid framed her face, her eyes bright. Gods, she was beautiful.

‘Ready, Apprentice?’

‘I was born ready, Warsword.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THEA

An ache formed in Thea’s chest as she tried not to stare at Wilder in the flickering firelight, his usually fierce features softened, a gentle smile lifting his lips.

He turned the first card over. Thea tore her gaze away from him and trained her eyes on her cards, but she could still feel him watching her.

She studied her hand for her highest card and placed it in the middle. Wilder did the same.

They placed cards down in silence for a few moments, waiting until a knave or fool appeared. It seemed to go on forever, and Thea used the time to wrack her mind for what she might ask him, what secrets she could tease from him.

But Wilder won the first round, which meant he took both cards and looked up with a cocky grin. ‘I believe I’m allowed a question, Apprentice.’

‘Get on with it, then,’ she said through clenched teeth. She hated losing. She should have challenged him to a game of Dancing Alchemists instead.

‘How did you become friends with Callahan and Kristopher?’ he asked.

Of all the things she had expected him to interrogate her about, this hadn’t been one of them. Not to mention her friends’ given names sounded oddly formal, enough that she laughed.

‘That’s what you want to know?’

‘That’s what I want to know.’

Thea shrugged. ‘Alright, then… The day you delivered me to Esyllt for shieldbearer training, we got assigned to clean-up duty in the armoury. According to our dear weapons master, we were all as useless as each other. I’ve been friends with them ever since.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Pretty much. Those two are hard to shake.’

‘So I’ve noticed.’

‘Jealous you don’t have any friends?’ she teased.

Wilder chuckled. ‘Says my self-proclaimed friend.’

‘You saying I’mnotyour friend, Warsword?’

A deep laugh burst from him then. ‘I’d say you’re probably my best friend, Apprentice.’

‘That’s depressing,’ she said, but warmth swelled in her chest.