Elm retrieved the Prophet, then the Mirror, and shoved them into his pocket. “It was a long shot.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. “Your hands are shaking.”
“I’m cold,” he ground out, slamming the box shut and locking it. “And I hate it down here.”
“Is there any place in Stone you don’t hate?”
“No.” Then, “The library, maybe.”
This time, Ione offered her hand. “Let me guess,” Elm said. “When you’re free of the Maiden, and all the feelings come back, you worry you won’t be able to live with yourself if you didn’t take pity on the trembling, rotten Prince.”
“Trees, you’re annoying.” She gripped his hand tight enough to still Elm’s tremors. “Now tell me how to get to the library.”
Ione’s eyes went wide when they stepped through the double arched doors. Her chin tilted up, her hazel gaze lifting in curiosity to the towering library shelves and limestone pillars and that high, arched ceiling. It struck Elm with a feeling he hadn’t yet worked out, that she’d brought him there to make him feel better.
She shouldn’t be trying to make him feel anything—not with her affections locked away. But what Elm had suspected before, he was growing more certain of.
There were some things not even magic could erase.
The library wasn’t empty. But the long mahogany table in front of the fireplace was. Elm’s stylus and sketchbook were still splayed on the floor from yesterday. He collected them and slid into a chair with his back to the flames. Ione took the seat next to him.
Elm opened his sketchbook. He had nothing to draw. But he needed to keep busy, at least until the tight, oppressive buzzing in his hands—his chest and feet—became more tolerable.
He ran the stylus in long, sweeping strokes over the paper, pressing too hard, indenting several pages. “I’m sorry. I get like this, sometimes,” he said, frowning at his hands. “At Stone.”
Ione’s silhouette was a soft specter in his periphery. She swept her hand over his sketchbook, a finger trailing the frayed ends of all the pages he’d ripped out. “It must be difficult, being here without your cousins. Being forced to take your brother’s place as heir.”
Elm’s eyes shot to her face. “How do you know about that?”
“You stood in Hauth’s place in the throne room. Sat in his chair in the great hall. I should think it obvious.”
“The King hasn’t announced it yet.” Elm pushed hair from his eyes. “He’s waiting.”
“For what?”
For me to choose a wife.
When he didn’t answer, Ione lifted her shoulders—an impartial shrug. “I figured he’d name you. I even considered asking you about it in the cellar, but…”
But things had gone unplanned, in the cellar.
Elm rolled his jaw. The anxiety from the vaults was slipping away, replaced by a new disquiet. He leaned over the table, resting his cheek in his hand. “About that, Hawthorn. If I was—if you didn’t enjoy yourself—” He cleared his throat. “If you’d rather pretend it never happened, I’ll understand.”
“What makes you think I didn’t enjoy myself?”
Elm’s laugh held an edge. “To say you left in a hurry would hardly do it justice. You fled.”
Ione lowered her gaze to the sketchbook. She took Elm’s stylus, then ran it with delicate abandon over the paper. A lock of yellow hair fell from behind her ear. “Would it shock you, Prince, if I said had we not been interrupted, I’d have stayed?”
“To what end?”
The stylus stilled on the paper. And Elm was rewarded by a nigh-invisible flush. A pink hue, that climbed from beneath the awful frilly collar of her dress into Ione’s jaw, settling in her face—making her mouth even pinker. It did wonderful, horrible things to his imagination. He wondered where else she was that shade of pink.
“You’d like me to tell you all the things we might have done?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“In sordid detail?”
“Absolutely.”
Ione ran the stem of the stylus down the center of her lips—looked him in the eye. “Beg me to.”
Elm’s hand flexed. He hauled in a sharp breath—
The corners of Ione’s mouth twitched. She was toying with him—and he had only himself to blame. He’d told her to do so. And now she, like him, had made a science, a wicked game, of measuring his reactions to her.
A curse slipped from Elm’s lips. He ran a hand through his unkempt hair. “You are so lucky we aren’t alone right now.”
As if summoned by his words, footsteps sounded. Someone cleared their throat, and then a chair on the opposite side of the table was being pulled out. When Elm turned, he was face-to-face with Baldwyn.
The King’s steward carried an enormous ledger, which he dropped on the table with an unceremonious thud. He surveyed Elm over his spectacles. “Prince Renelm.” His beady brown eyes flickered to Ione. “Miss Hawthorn.”
Elm’s teeth set on edge. “What do you want, Baldwyn?”
The steward undid the leather clasp from his ledger. “Your father had some vital papers drawn up, Your Highness.” He took out ink and a quill. “I require your time and your signature.”
“What for?”
“The business side of things, as you called it,” Baldwyn said, dipping into the ink.
Elm glanced down at the ledger—the stack of parchment held within its bindings. Even upside down, he could read it.
Renelm Rowan. His Second Royalty. Keeper of Laws. Heir to Blunder.
Elm put a hand over his face. “That was quick.”
“Actually, sire, the papers were ready yesterday. But I was told you were away, gallivanting at Castle Yew.”
“The Gallivanting Heir—I like it. Add it to the title.”
Baldwyn glanced up. “Humor,” he said, his voice dried out by condescension. “How different you are from your brother.”
The chair next to Elm slid back, and Ione pushed to her feet. “I’ll leave you two—”
Elm wrapped his fingers in her skirt and held tight. “Not so fast, Hawthorn.”
Ione looked down at him, eyes narrowing. “I’ll only be in the way.”
“Right where I like you. We need a witness, do we not, Baldwyn?”
“Just so. I have already asked—”
“Perfect. I volunteer Miss Hawthorn.” Elm gave Ione’s dress a hard tug. She dropped back into her chair with a plunk, hazel eyes flaring, only to go cold a second later.
Baldwyn flipped through the parchment, then turned the ledger around so that it faced Elm and Ione. He glanced over his shoulder to a scribe waiting in the wing of the library. “No need, Hamish,” he called. “We have acquired a new witness.”
The scribe nodded and stepped away. When he did, he had to force his way through a party of four women, none of them moving to make room. They spoke to one another in hushed voices behind gloved fingers, all of their eyes trained on Elm.
“Trees,” he muttered, itchy beneath their scrutiny. But before he turned away, one of the four women caught his gaze. He couldn’t remember her name. Yvette Laburnum—was that it? Her father was a busybody, but his estate brought more wine into Blunder than the rest combined, so he was tolerated.