Page 49 of The Frog Prince

“I did not mean to imply that the duty for fixing things here lay with you…” He let go of the prince’s arm and folded his own into a fist on his lap. “I just wish I could help everyone. I wish I knew how.”

There was a suspended moment when he thought the prince would leave anyway—standing so still and conflicted with his arm held out like Otto was still holding it prisoner.

“Tell me your theories.”

Happiness flooded Otto’s system, trying to put his wayward thoughts into coherent words. “The cure you provided for me was tangible. If it could not be recreated, the magic would have simply cured her from a distance.”

The prince shifted on his feet, pulling the cuff of the shirt down and rubbing the wrist Otto had been holding moments earlier. It looked like he was trying to cover as much skin as possible. “A good deduction. What does it mean?”

“There are many herbs and fungi in the deepest parts of the forest that have not been discovered for fear of what lives in there,” Otto said.

The skin where a brow would be rose. “Frog Princes?”

“Among other things,” Otto said with a small smile. “I’ve been searching for years now but…I’m not so brave.”

“I have seen many things in the forest that have not widely been known.” The prince gave him a quick, almost nervous look. “I could take you.”

Otto’s brows rose in surprise. “You…would?”

“I know the forest better than most, and nothing will approach us as long as I’m there,” the prince said. “Even monsters fear other monsters.”

Otto found he didn’t like those words from the prince’s mouth, some instinct inside him making his chest puff and his tongue curl with words he didn’t know how to express yet. They were frustratingly out of reach, his mind buzzing like a hive that had recently been hit and hadn’t settled yet.

“Do you have a name?” he found himself asking abruptly.

The question was loud in the room, seemingly taking the Frog Prince completely off guard.

“I do,” he said slowly. “Though I have not claimed it for a long time.”

Otto supposed when the world cried out the Frog Prince, it started to feel as if that was the only name you owned. It was a strange thought that something so powerful could also perhaps fall victim to hearsay. Was the Frog Prince moniker something he’d chosen? Or had it been branded on him?

Frowning, he looked away, righting a few things on his desk as he continued to ruminate over these new questions.

“Alwin.”

Otto’s heart stopped and his hand froze. He slowly turned his head, meeting a shuttered green gaze.

“Those closest to me called me Alwin.”

A name is a powerful thing that shouldn’t be given out so freely, for there are those who could use it against you.

“May I?” Otto asked tentatively. “Call you that?”

The prince’s fingers shook before he hid them behind his back—a common habit he seemed to have. He looked toward the door pensively, like he was thinking of escaping.

“I suppose you are the closest anyone has been to me in a long while,” he murmured, so quiet Otto’s ears almost missed it, before he broke for the door. “We can head out whenever you’d like. I need to take care of something quickly.”

This time, Otto didn’t stop him. He watched him open the front door and look around for anyone who could see him before stepping out.

“Alwin?” Otto called before the door could close. He watched him shiver at the sound of his name before he turned to look at Otto with eyes that were drowning.

“Yes?” he asked, the croaky voice shaking.

“Thank you. For trusting me with it.” Otto held his gaze for as long as Alwin let him before he disappeared from sight.

All Otto wanted to do was reach for him again.

Nine