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Marcellus finally angled his head towards her. “My family died a long time ago. I’m over it.” His expression was so pointedly blank it would have been easy to believe him. But she didn’t. His family was the whole reason he was even her guard. Caspian convinced him to turn his anger into something useful, Bern had said.

If he wasn’t obligated to be by her side, would he still stay?

If he had the opportunity to leave, would he?

After all, she was responsible for stripping him of all he had left in this world.

Marcellus grabbed one of her curls, stretching it out between them. “Whatever you’re overthinking about, stop it.” He let go and the curl sprung back.

Thicket startled, pressing a hand to the spot her curl had hit. “Hey.”

He snatched the picture frame from her hand and stalked back to the porch. Thicket bounded after him. “What was it like?” she asked. “Growing up here?”

“Quiet,” he said, with a look in her direction.

“I just want to know more about you,” she retorted. “Is that a crime?”

Marcellus rested the picture frame on the side of the steps. “You want answers?” He grabbed her practice stick and held it out to her. “Then you are going to have to earn them.”

She scowled. “How is that fair? I told you about my dreams!”

“That was necessary information.”

“Then… I love muffins! Specifically peanut butter banana muffins! The secret ingredient is chocolate chips—lots of them.”

He grimaced. “That sounds atrocious.”

“It is delicious! Now, tell me something.”

He waved the stick at her. “Take it or leave it, Princess.”

His eyes were still distant, those walls of his sturdier than ever. But some of the tension in his shoulders had eased, settling her own swirling apprehension. She snatched the stick from his hand. “You are going to regret that when I drive you into the ground with my amazing sword skills.”

Marcellus raised an eyebrow. “You are more of a danger to yourself than you are to me, Princess.” He retrieved a second stick for himself and got into his stance. “But by all means,” he twirled the stick before anchoring his grip, “give it your all.”

Chapter Fourteen

Over the next few days Thicket repeated the same exhausting routine: push her body to its limits through a series of squats, pushups, pullups, sit ups—and all other kinds of ups—followed by sparring with Marcellus himself, who got his daily dose of joy from beating her to a bruised husk of a person with a stick.

If that wasn’t enough—which it never was—they would take a lunch break and then move on to magic training to clean the terrifyingly dirty house. Using more than one spell at once was becoming far easier, and her application of them was broadening, yet mastering control had made her progress slow. Spell alteration, however, was still out of her league. Each night, she attempted to heat her bath only to slip her throbbing muscles into lukewarm water.

The only thing that got her through the day was the knowledge that she was getting stronger. She was still a work in progress, but every morning she woke up feeling just a bit more assured that her fight with Lavender wouldn’t be her last.

Her lungs heaved, as sharp as the pain heating her bones from the early morning’s icy breath. Legs trembling, she squared up to Marcellus, sword raised. The mystery item Marcellus had asked Caspian to send was one of his extra swords, which he had thrust at her this morning after their practice rounds.

“Are you ready for a real sword fight?” he asked.

She wrapped her hands around the pommel. She had practiced her movements each and every morning with Marcellus’ sword, getting her body used to the weight, but she had yet to spar with it. “I am.”

So she had said. Sparring with something as lightweight as a practice stick was nothing compared to a real sword. The effort it took to react in time to Marcellus’ blows was agonizing. Her muscles screamed, nearly tearing at the seams. It didn’t matter how many times she had practiced her movements, or how familiar her body already was with swordplay. It couldn’t compensate for the sheer speed at which he was able to direct the blade. A speed she had to match if she didn’t want to lose a limb.

“You may have retained some of your motor skills from before the curse,” Marcellus said, “but that doesn’t give you a free pass to slack off. I don’t care how good you were. You can always do better.”

And that’s what she had asked him to help her become.

Better. Stronger.

Capable of holding her own.