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He bumps his shoulder against mine at the door, brief and warm, the closest thing to a hug Felix has ever willingly offered anyone. “Text me if you need anything. Even at three in the morning. I mean it.”

“I know you do,” I say.

“I’m serious, Bunny,” he says, pausing on the step.

“I know,” I say, softer this time.

He leaves, and the flat goes quiet again, the particular quiet of a place that’s just witnessed someone’s hopes and dreams alter.

I lock up behind him, rinse the mugs, wipe down the counter one more time though it’s already clean.

Then I go to the window, one more time, and check the bush.

Still empty. Still just a bush.

I tell myself that’s fine. I tell myself one problem at a time is a perfectly sensible approach to an unreasonable situation. That there’s no use borrowing tomorrow’s grief tonight. That whatever happens with thrones and crowns and marriages that aren’t mine, there’s absolutely nothing productive to be done about it at half-past eleven.

I believe about sixty percent of that, which, I’ll admit, is roughly my average for most things lately.

Besides, what I told Felix is true. I need to save the world before I worry about dating.

I check the bush one last time before I finally go to bed, just in case.

It’s still empty.

Chapter 15

Project Toast

I’ve started taking the long way home on purpose.

I could tell myself it’s for the fresh air. I could tell myself Bristol’s lovely at this hour, all lamplight and quiet. And normally I’d believe it, because normally it would even be true.

Tonight, however, I know exactly why I’ve gone the way that takes me past the park gates instead of straight down the main road. It has nothing to do with fresh air and everything to do with the particular kind of hope that doesn’t listen when you tell it to behave.

Then suddenly I feel it. That familiar drop in temperature down the back of my neck, faint, careful, trying very hard to be nothing at all.

I should let it go. But for reasons I’m choosing not to examine too closely, I stop walking instead, and turn around properly, and look.

He doesn’t vanish. That’s new. Usually by the time I’ve turned there’s nothing but a wall and my own ridiculous hope left standing in the street. Unsure if he ever was there or if my imagination was going haywire.

He’s solid tonight, dark and handsome and faintly brooding in the way he gets. And the sight of him lands like something physical, a dagger straight under the ribs before I’ve had a single chance to brace for it. A throne. A marriage that isn’t his to choose. His brother deciding our future.

I’m not going to tell him I know. Not tonight. I think my heart will shatter into a thousand pieces if I try.

“You’re not meant to be here,” I say, and it comes out wobblier than I mean to.

“No,” he says, not moving an inch closer.

“That’s it?” I fold my arms, mostly to give them something to do. “No excuse? No urgent Shadow Realm business you happened to be passing through Bristol for? I was rather hoping for something with goats in it.”

“I have no excuse,” he says. The honesty of it, offered up plainly with nothing to soften it, undoes something in my chest I’d been holding together reasonably well up to that point. “I attempted to stay away tonight. I have attempted every night. I am not managing it especially well.”

“Neither am I,” I admit.

Something in his face eases slightly at that, like he’d been half convinced I was handling this considerably better than he was.

“I keep taking the long way round.” I continue. Babbling now but unable to stop. “I’ve walked past this park about four times more than any actual errand requires. At this rate the council should start charging me.”