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Finbar’s break-in last night had proved that these rooms weren’t completely secure. I told myself that was the reason I carried the crockery to the wash basin when I finished; it wasn’t because I needed an excuse to hide the heat in my face.

“Wait until the persimmons are in season,” Keil said, clearing the ingredients. “Val and Lye once started a small war for the last slice of my cake at the winter carnival.”

“Winter . . .” A twinge pulled at my stomach. Keeping my voice light, I asked, “You think I’ll be at the estate that long?”

He hesitated. “Not if you don’t want to be.” He drifted to my side, a towel in hand to dry the dishes I washed. “An apartment in the city, perhaps, with a balcony overlooking the food market. Fresh pastries each morning. Fresh drinking chocolate each night.”

“I could plant gardenias under the window,” I said, playing along, “and use their essence to make perfume.”

“You know how to do that?”

“No, but I could learn. Amarie always said that if I put as much energy into learning a craft as I did into learning Double Decks strategies, I would be the most accomplished craftsperson in Vereen.”

“Double Decks?”

“A card game. The year’s winner received a week’s worth of their favorite dessert.”

“You’re the lady of Vereen.” Keil leaned against the counter, grinning. “Could you not acquire your favorite dessert any time you wished?”

“There was something more gratifying about winning it. Besides, Marge makes the best lemon cakes this side of—” I broke off, the fantasy shattering.

Marge had become a part of my life because of those lemon cakes; Tari and I would queue from dawn at her cake stall, playing cards to pass the time. Seeing us play, she’d invited us into her monthly Double Decks games.

And then, three years later, we’d found the Hunters’ Mark on her door and Marge gone.

My grip on the next dish faltered as Keil asked, quietly, “You don’t want to be here until winter, do you?”

There it was—the truth I hadn’t yet admitted to him, even when Osana had questioned me about it. The reason my heart had wrenched when I’d considered what might happen between me and Keil after my deal with Rheya was complete. Because nothing could happen between us, at least not in the long term.

New paths can always be forged, he’d once said, even to impossible destinations. And once the compass was destroyed and Erik fell from power, I planned to carve a path back to Daradon.

If my hunch was correct, Erik hadn’t just Hunted Wielders like Marge; he’d used them as experiments. Which meant there was a chance they were alive, a chance I could save them. And I couldn’t do that from this side of the sea . . . nor did I want to.

I wanted to Wield freely in the province I loved, living in the home where I’d grown up. I wanted to feel safe within my own kingdom, and I wanted other Wielders to feel safe there, too.

Perhaps it was too wishful a thought for someone who’d spent eighteen years resigned to a half-life. But ever since Rose Season, I’d felt a gnawing in my gut—an ineffable, undeniable hunger for more.

Because I knew, deep down, that I deserved more than a half-life. Every person did.

“I want my home,” I said honestly, drying my hands. “Even if it doesn’t yet want me.”

“And this couldn’t be your home?” Keil’s hope threatened to split me in two directions. Because if I couldn’t see a future in this empire . . . then he couldn’t be part of my future, either.

“Do you want it to be?” I asked softly.

Keil’s sigh ended with a sad smile. “If you’re asking about the things I want, this will become a very different conversation.”

My specter fluttered toward the surface.

I knew I was causing myself more pain in the long term by moving closer. But my confession had put us in sync, in a way we hadn’t been before—both of us now knowing this could only be temporary. So maybe it didn’t have to mean anything more than two people wanting to soothe the ache that had been building between us for too long. A heated exploration of each other without the emotion, a swoop without the crash landing.

A half-formed romance in which neither party had anything to lose.

I didn’t know how it would make me feel, taking a piece of him while denying myself the whole. One taste of pleasure usually begets an appetite, he’d said once.

I feared he would be right.

Still, following the internal pull toward him instead of my better judgment, I angled my face upward to meet his eyes. “And what is it you want, Your Highness?”