a blade?” I asked lightly.
“Not any more than they’d trust me with one,” she said.
There was so much I wanted to say to her. Even if she couldn’t answer me, with the enchantment still gripping her mind. But trying to explain myself almost seemed wrong, as if I were trying to duck the responsibility for what I’d done in that throne room.
Even if I hadn’t been trying to save my kingdom, when I saw her in that gown, her face luminous, I’d craved her for myself and myself only.
“Boat,” Raile said abruptly, heading past the two of us. “I want Tiron close to Alisa, in case the winter court’s not feeling particularly obedient today either, and decides to try to murder us all before we reach shore.”
“The shoreline’s looking rather empty,” Duncan said curtly as the four of us climbed into the rowboat.
Sailors lowered the boat, and it settled into the waves with a thunk. Alisa swayed, but side-eyed Duncan when he reached for her protectively. He wisely changed course and returned his hands to his own thighs.
“Alisa, don’t make me use the oars,” Raile said, jerking his chin toward the horizon. “It’s embarrassing.”
All around us, other row boats were plinking into the water, manned by both Raile’s marines and the knights who had joined our side.
He leaned close to her, whispering into her ear as she frowned. She raised her fingers, summoning the wind, the currents, and our boar began to bump along the waves. Clumsily, we headed for shore.
“When are you taking back your magic?” Duncan demanded of Raile, his voice curt. I had the feeling he was jealous too.
Raile leaned back in the bow of the boat, his arms draped over the side; anywhere he sat, he looked as if he were on a throne. “All I possess belongs to my wife.”
Duncan scoffed.
“Duncan’s right,” Alisa said. “Strange as those words are to say. You need your own magic.”
“I’m comfortable depending on you,” Raile said lazily, crossing one leg over the other. “And you need my magic to break the enchantment Faer cast. You can give it back then.”
“Why did you make it sound as if returning your magic might be difficult?” Alisa demanded.
“It’s not that it’s difficult,” Raile said. He straightened, then leaned forward, his gaze intent on the distance. “I trust you to keep yourself alive, and me along with you, until then.”
“We’re being watched,” Duncan said quietly. “For the sake of the gods, Raile, don’t stare.”
“They’re my people,” I said. I could feel winter magic, the faint tingle of ice along my skin that I felt when someone from my court was nearby, using their power. Maybe I wouldn’t have been attuned to it if I’d grown up in my own court and took them for granted. But I’d grown up on the run, and ever since I’d been in Faer’s court, my heart leapt when winter Fae were near.
The memory of the snow tiger dying beside me, along with its cub, rose like a ghost, and then all the other miseries I’d seen, visited upon us by the High Court.
Sometimes those atrocities had come at the hands of Fae knights from the spring, summer and fall courts, following Faer’s orders. Some of them were knights I’d since come to drink with, to sing bawdy songs at night and spar with during the day, Fae who made me laugh and told me about their families.
My people couldn’t forget what had been done to our court, and that meant I couldn’t either.
Alisa ran the rowboat up into the sand, and it swayed to one side. I was already jumping out.
“Stay here,” I ordered.
The cove was eerily silent, except for the sound of the wind blowing through the trees.
“Get back,” Duncan said suddenly. His voice was nearer my ear than I expected, and the next thing I knew, his bulk thudded into me.
The two of us slammed into the grit. The next second, arrows whistled over our heads and burrowed into the sand.
“I didn’t know you cared,” I told him as I crouched to draw my sword, only to find it wasn’t there. I wasn’t trusted with one. Gods damn it. I’d have to find another weapon.
“I want to kill you myself,” he promised.
I glanced over my shoulder to find Alisa—I couldn’t help myself, I had to know she was safe—and saw her hunkered down behind the rowboat. Although Alisa’s version of hunkered down reminded me of a cat preparing to spring, at least she had taken