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Felix doesn’t laugh. I don’t blame him. It wasn’t much of a joke to begin with, and I think we both know I only reached for it because the alternative was standing here silently while it landed properly.

I don’t say anything for a moment after that. There isn’t really anything to say that doesn’t sound enormous the second I try to shape it into words. I just stand there instead, feeling the size of it settle in slowly, the way cold water finds every gap in your clothes eventually if you stand in it long enough.

“Dis is properly worried,” Felix says, quieter now. “Not about Night falling in love. He can hardly object to that, given his own circumstances. He just kept saying the realm’s barely settled from the last upheaval. Another one this soon, and he doesn’t know if it holds.”

“What does that mean, exactly,” I ask. “Doesn’t hold?”

“I didn’t push him on it,” Felix says. “He went somewhere else in his head for a minute, somewhere he clearly didn’t want to bring me along to. I decided that was answer enough for tonight.”

“Can he stop it?” I ask. “Any of them?”

“How?” Felix says, something sharp creeping into it. “Tell Night not to love someone? When Dis and Hex did the exact same thing? And apparently love’s meant to be sacred, to shadow beings. You don’t get to talk someone out of it just because the timing’s inconvenient.”

I think about Dark saying something similar, once. I wonder if this is what he meant, that whatever they feel, once they feel it, doesn’t bend for anyone’s convenience, not even their own.

“Does Dark know?” I ask. “All of it. The marrying part.”

The fact that if he takes the throne, he can’t have me. And if he chooses me, his realm falls into war and chaos, and potentially something worse.

“I presume so,” Felix says.

I press the heel of my hand against my eye, hard, and take a breath that doesn’t help much.

“Bunny,” he says, catching the gesture, voice gentling.

“I’m fine,” I say, too quickly.

“You’re not,” he says.

“I’m processing.” I straighten up, force something like a smile onto my face. It sits there badly. “One problem at a time. That’s the plan. Save the world first, sort out my love life after. I’ve dealt with worse odds. I once ran the tombola at the summer fair single handed after Brian Two backed out claiming a bad back, and that man does not get bad backs, so you can imagine the trust issues that raised.”

“I have no idea what that has to do with any of this.”

“Neither do I. It felt comforting to say.”

Felix looks at me for a long moment, not buying a single word of it. Arms folded, head tilted the exact way he tilts it when a customer has just told him something obviously untrue while seeking a refund.

“Most people assume it’s early days,” he says, carefully. “You and him. A few weeks. Nothing serious yet.”

“It’s not early days. Not really. Not the way it feels,” I blurt out helplessly, without meaning to. My tongue spilling all of my secrets without my permission.

“I know,” Felix says. “That’s what worries me. Hex thinks it’s sweet, the pause, very mature of you both, very sensible. Dis didn’t say much either way, but I don’t think either of them’s clocked how far gone you actually are. I don’t think they’d have brushed past it so quickly if they had.”

“Would it change anything if they knew?” I ask.

“Probably not,” he admits with a weary sigh.

I don’t have anything to say to that, so I don’t try. I just reach for the mugs, start making more tea neither of us particularly wants. It gives my hands something to do that isn’t shaking.

“He might not even take it,” I say, eventually. “The crown. Maybe there’s another way.”

“Maybe,” Felix says, not sounding convinced.

“And even if he does,” I say, “maybe the heir thing isn’t as strict as it sounds. Rules like that usually have exceptions somewhere. Old traditions get quietly bent all the time, don’t they, once enough people decide they’ve had enough of them.”

“Maybe,” Felix says again, gentler this time, the way you’d agree with someone you don’t actually believe.

I nod, hand him his tea, and change the subject before either of us has to keep pretending the maybes sound convincing. We talk about nothing for a while after that, Hannah’s exciting adventures, some nonsense from the coffee shop, Sebastian’s new and deeply suspicious politeness, anything that isn’t crowns or marriages or realms I’ll never get to see properly. By the time Felix leaves I’ve almost managed to convince myself the evening’s gone back to something ordinary.