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“Oh, how I wish we were, my sweet summer child.”

“Oh my God. I said that to Silar once,” Cherry panted. “Do you know what he said in response?”

“What?” Darcy and I asked in unison.

“He… He said… Like, completely seriously! He said, ‘But my birthday is in winter.’”

She laughed so hard that she collapsed onto her back on the bed, which sent Darcy tumbling into giggles after her.

And after that, I didn’t last long.

Before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face. My ribs ached. My abs felt like I’d just tried and failed to copy Silar or Fallon’s workout routine.

I was laughing so hard I was legitimately in pain.

And it felt… good.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed like this.

“My stomach hurts. Oh God,” Darcy grunted, dragging herself up into a seated position on the bed.

Fallon’s voice suddenly boomed from the kitchen, making all three of us jump.

“Your stomach?” he called. Then, rapid footsteps and the flinging open of the bedroom door. His eyes were bright white as he entered the room. “What is wrong with your stomach? Do you require some tea? I will make it!”

“No, no. That’s alright,” Darcy said, but Fallon had already hightailed it out of the room, presumably to make the tea.

“I love how he and Silar were perfectly content to let us laugh ourselves silly over the… situation,” Cherry said, wiping her eyes, “but the second you said your stomach was hurting he came bursting in here like an alien superhero.”

“He loves making me tea. Ever since that first night I was here,” Darcy said. “When I ended up in that freezing creek. He made me drink the tea Magnolia gave him and now he thinks it’s like some magical, all-healing elixir.”

“That’s sweet.”

Cherry and Darcy both looked at me with their brows raised.

“Are you calling our homicidal husbands sweet?” Cherry asked with a grin.

“I… I really think I am.” I went to the doorway, watching as Fallon flitted about the kitchen, preparing tea while Silar wiped down the surface of the table. “I have to admit. This was not what I was expecting. At all.”

“They’re good men,” Cherry said softly. “The warden, too.”

“You like him?” I whirled around in surprise.

Cherry nodded. “I do. He’s done so much for Silar and me.” She paused. “You don’t?”

“Don’t what?”

“Like him.”

“I…”

I may have been imagining how girthy he was mere moments ago…

Cherry and Darcy didn’t need to know that.

“I don’t trust him,” is what I went with. “He wasn’t honest with me about the situation I was sending you two, and Magnolia, into.”

“But he didn’t know!” Darcy said, shaking her head rapidly. “It was the higher-ups in the empire who decided not to disclose that lovely little fact. It wasn’t until long after Cherry had arrived that Silar realized she didn’t know about his past. Then she told us.”