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“Now get to it,” he said.

“So bossy,” I grumbled over my shoulder.

He leaned in close behind me, his breath warm against my ear, and his voice dropped to that low register that did absolutely criminal things to my pulse.

“You mean kingly.”

I felt him smile against my hair. Then, lower still, barely more than a whisper,

“So don’t keep this king waiting…” A pause, “…or I might have to eat something else instead. Something delicious.”

The memory of exactly what he’d called delicious the night before crashed through me, and every coherent thought in my head promptly evacuated the premises.

By the time I’d recovered enough to summon a single scathing word, he was already gone, the door clicking shut behind him and his low laugh fading down the corridor.

I stood there for a long moment, flushed from head to toe, staring at the closed door.

“I’m in so much trouble,” I told the empty room.

The room, much like the wolves on the bathtub downstairs, offered no sympathy whatsoever. It did, however, offer opulence on a frankly obscene scale. If the guest chamber’s bathing room had looked fit for gods, then the king’s own private version looked fit for the gods’ more extravagant relatives.

The floor was warm, pale marble shot through with veins of gold, and a vast sunken bath had been carved directly into it, already steaming gently. Silver fixtures gleamed against dark stone. Glass bottles lined a long shelf, each one filled with oils and soaps in jewel-bright colors. Tall windows looked out across the same breathtaking sweep of mountains I had glimpsed the night before, snow-capped and gold-touched beneath the morning sun.

I would have happily drowned in that bath for a week.

Unfortunately, I had a king to not keep waiting.

So, I was efficient about it, for once in my life. I scrubbed the last traces of the previous night from my skin, washed my hair, and tried very hard not to think about the way certain muscles ached in a way that had nothing to do with battle. When I finally climbed out, pink and clean and feeling something dangerously close to human, I found a wardrobe waiting along one wall, and inside it, of course, more dresses… like he’d planned for me being there.

Because heaven forbid this castle contain a single pair of trousers.

I picked one in deep crimson this time, a change from yesterday’s pale blue, the fabric soft and rich and embroidered with a silver thread at the cuffs and bodice. It was beautiful. It was also, I quickly discovered, every bit as much of a tactical nightmare as its predecessor, and after a brief and humbling struggle with the laces, I was deeply relieved to hear a soft knock at the door.

“My lady?”

I could have kissed her.

“Please tell me you know how this works,” I said the moment I let Thalia in, gesturing helplessly at the half-fastened back of the gown.

The young maid’s hazel eyes crinkled, the nervousness from yesterday already softening into something warmer.

“I do, my lady… erm, I mean, Alex,” she said, remembering to use my name with only a small, shy hesitation. “Hold still.”

Within minutes, she had me sorted, the laces tightened with brisk, practiced ease, my damp hair brushed and pinned back from my face. When I turned to the mirror, the woman looking back at me once again barely resembled the one who had crossed a battlefield. Crimson and silver, clean and soft, like something out of the storybook I still couldn’t quite believe I’d fallen into.

“Now,” I said, turning to Thalia with what I hoped was an air of confidence, “I don’t suppose you could also show me how to find my way to wherever I’m supposed to be? Because I will be honest with you, I got lost twice yesterday just trying to find the stairs.” Of course, I left out the part where I was trying to run from her king.

Thalia laughed, the sound easier now, and led me out into the maze. She guided me down sweeping staircases and along corridors lined with towering windows, past tapestries and silver lanterns and more grandeur than any one building had a right to contain. And we continued on still until at last she brought me out through a pair of open glass doors and into the late morning air.

And I forgot, for a moment, how to do anything but stare.

A garden terrace stretched before me, all pale stone warmed gold by the sun, bordered by climbing vines heavy with white and violet blossoms that spilled over the balustrades and perfumed the entire space. Beyond it, the mountains rose in the distance, and birdsong drifted on a breeze that carried no trace of ash, smoke, or war. In the center of it all, a single table had been set for two, draped in white linen and laid with enough food to feed a small regiment.

And rising from his seat at the sight of me was Atlas.

His gaze traveled over me slowly, taking in the crimson gown, and a slow smirk curved his mouth.

“Be honest,” he said, as I crossed the terrace toward him. “How much do you wish for your combat boots and army fatigues right now?”