Page 388 of Heat of the Everflame

“Like murdering my birth father,” I mumbled.

He hunched forward, resting his forearms on the table. “I know you don’t want to do it.”

I winced. “Is it that obvious?”

“No. But I know your heart. You want to find some way to redeem him. It’s who you are.”

My eyes fell. “Does that make me a traitor to my mother? Or all the innocent people he’s killed?”

He hesitated before answering. “Hope doesn’t make you a traitor... but I do think there are some people who can’t be redeemed.”

And you think he’s one of them,I thought, though neither of us voiced it aloud.

I snatched two apples from a bowl of fruit, tossing one to him. He unsheathed a small knife from his boot, and I stared in dismay as he began to carve it into perfectly even slices without a drop of juice spilled, ever the well-heeled, sophisticated royal.

He noticed me watching him and paused. I gnawed off a massive chunk from my apple with an irreverent crunch, then wiped the juice from my lips with the back of my hand.

His eyes narrowed.

“Savage.”

“Snob.”

We both grinned.

“When we have our orchard, you’ll have to learn how to eat apples like a mortal, or they’re going to run us out of Mortal City,” I teased.

He froze, his knife half-lodged in the core.

“I was thinking,” I went on, “when we get back to Lumnos, let’s find land near my family’s old cottage, like you suggested. We can hire some mortals to build us a home. My father’s friends, perhaps.”

His mouth opened, but no words came out.

I smiled. I knew that feeling well.

“It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Maybe something small, or maybe...” My cheeks warmed. “Something we could grow into someday. As a family.”

For a long time, Luther was still.

Then his knuckles went white. His hand slipped off the apple, sending his knife slicing across his chest. A line of red formed on his sweater.

“By the Flames,” I hissed. I rushed around the table and perched on his lap, laying my palm over his chest to push healing magic into the wound. “Gods, Luther, that was right over your heart.” I shot him a playful scowl. “Be careful with that. It belongs to me now.”

He stared at me, lips parted, face bloodless. His eyes were aglow, but not with his usual Lumnos light. Something warmer.

“Your Majesty?”

A pair of Doriel’s attendants appeared at the door. They took one look at the food scattered among books on the library table and cringed. I wondered if risking the welfare of a book in Sophos was punishable by execution.

“The boat is waiting to take you to the island,” one said. “Doriel asked that you come right away.”

My gut clenched. The time had finally come.

I stood and wiped the blood from my hand. Luther looked dazed, hand gripping his chest. I frowned. “Are you alright?”

He nodded stiffly. Slowly, he rose to join me.

The attendants exchanged an awkward look. “Only the Queen is permitted to come,” one said. “The Prince is to wait for Her Majesty here.”

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