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Lorelei abruptly stiffened. Oh, Sylvana … She didn’t want to hear the answer to that question.

She’d never told her mother herself, but Morgana had eyes and ears everywhere in Efaelen’s court. Lorelei couldn’t bear to see Gerard’s reaction when he learned how little her own mother cared for her welfare anymore.

However, it was Oberon’s face that blotched with color. “I am the chosen proxy for Queen Morgana at this tournament!”

“Which doesn’t answer my question,” Gerard observed, “but it does bring up another issue I’ve wondered about ever since your status was first announced to us. You’ve been intriguingly careful with your phrasing every time you’ve stated that you were chosen … but you’ve never said by whom. Did Queen Morgana herself actually choose you? Or was it someone else entirely?”

Oh … Lorelei leaned closer, her skin prickling with new tension and an excruciatingly painful, childish hope.

If her mother hadn’t really chosen to treat Oberon as her favored successor, after everything he’d done …

Oberon’s gaze flicked rapidly back and forth around Gerard’s big figure, as if searching for any helpful distractions on the empty field around them.

Apparently failing in that quest, he stepped back, his thin nostrils flaring in a sneer. “Enough questions! You’ve made your own choice, soldier, so you’ll endure mine in return. Before tomorrow’s games are over, I wager you’ll wish you’d been wise enough to take my offered friendship.”

Oberon shook his head in bitter condemnation. “Enjoy your final evening of celebration, mortal. You will not have another one.”

20

It might not be magic, but Gerard still found it impressive that Lorelei could orbit him with such precision all across the long evening of feasts and musical performances while managing to appear entirely unaware of his presence. Not for an instant did she ever come close enough to touch—or even attempt conversation—through the shifting crowds. Yet, every time he turned around, from the moment he first returned from his private discussion with Lord Oberon, he glimpsed her in the crowd close by, seeming fully focused on her various companions … but always keeping him within her view.

Had she noticed him talking privately with the tournament’s host in her absence? Perhaps she was watching him so closely now in order to prevent any attempts at escape or betrayal.

If so … how very little she understood the seismic shifts that had altered his perspective since she’d swept him away to Efaelen and overturned all of his preconceptions.

Luckily, he knew exactly how to take advantage of an opponent’s mistake.

Gerard was used to being on guard against observers, after so many years of public life. But he’d never before enjoyed the sensation of being stealthily studied—nor had he ever so keenly anticipated flipping the hunt around. By the end of the night, his body was humming with awareness, and he was more than ready to set his trap.

Tonight, just like the night before, a ceremonial gesture from Lord Oberon sent majestic lines of trees marching in retreat to reveal the same extravagant array of waiting silken tents, each lit from within by dancing will-o’-the-wisps; unlike the preceding evening, Lorelei made no move to join Gerard or take him with her to the tent they had previously shared.

Despite all those teasing overtures she had made in the past, it seemed he wasn’t, after all, the only one who’d been internally battling their yearslong attraction … and like any wily opponent, she was ready to withdraw from her current position of weakness and focus on rebuilding her defenses. No doubt she planned to wait for him to choose a tent and then claim the one beside it, all the better to keep an eye on him without actually talking with him and thereby risking the loss of any more of her secrets.

Gerard had quite a different plan for the night ahead. Nodding a polite farewell to the fae gathered around him and setting down the half-full mug that he’d been holding all night long, he turned and began to stroll unhurriedly away from the waiting village of tents, towards the darkness of the trees on the other side of the tournament field. For a moment, he considered whistling an easy tune as he walked, to increase the effect—but no, that would be excessive.

It took less than a minute before Lorelei’s voice sounded behind him, slightly breathless from exertion but still wryly amused. “Have you lost your way, General? In case you hadn’t noticed, the festivities have ended for the night.”

Aha. The first skirmish was officially his. “You astound me.” Turning politely, Gerard tilted his head in question. “Shouldn’t you be finding your own rest for the night, then?”

Studying him in silence, she bit down on her lush lower lip.

Gerard’s stomach tightened in primitive response. He breathed through it.

“If you’re in need of even more vigorous exercise,” Lorelei finally said, “you’d be better off taking it inside a tent.”

Vigorous exercise … in a tent? What exactly was she offering? Caught off guard by the unexpected—and dangerously tempting—images her suggestion had summoned, he stared at her wordlessly, his eyebrows soaring upwards. She stared back. Then, for the first time in their seven-year acquaintance, he saw something he would never have imagined possible: the scandal-loving Lorelei of Balravia wincing in pink-cheeked mortification.

“That’s not—I only meant that you could do your—your—whatever that was this morning in our tent!” she cried, gesturing desperately. “That thing, with your shirt off, on the ground—I mean—”

“My calisthenics. Naturally.” As a deep, almost irrepressible laugh rose unexpectedly through his chest, Gerard realized that he was enjoying himself now even more than he had during any of the tournament’s official challenges. Gravely, he asked, “What else could anyone have imagined?”

Lorelei’s blue eyes narrowed in deep suspicion. He kept his lips in a straight line and tamped down the laugh that wanted to escape.

Gerard was not a man known for breaking into laughter. But with Lorelei in this liminal, magical realm, with soft darkness wrapping around them both … all of a sudden, extraordinary developments felt tantalizingly possible. The Queen of Balravia, after all her years of determined flirtation, could blush at an unintentional insinuation; Gerard, if he allowed himself, could laugh with her as if she were a friend—the best friend he had ever had; and together …

She let out a gusty sigh before his improbable fantasy could spool out any further. “I am thinking of your safety.” From the ground-glass tone of her voice, it was a painful—perhaps even embarrassing—admission. “I would prefer you not to go wandering on your own at night, without me to keep an eye on you.”

His eyebrows rose. “If you think I’m plotting an escape…”