Morgan found her in the poultry coop an hour later, sticky with feathers and sneezing as she emptied the laying boxes of their fouled straw and refilled them with fresh. Alone, save for the crooning, clucking birds, they stared at each other across the complicated distance between them.

Last night he kissed me, and told me to speak his name. But now the sun’s shining. Has anything truly changed?

Not really. Even unbound, she was still a prisoner. Still dependent upon this volatile man’s goodwill. And she’d be wise not to forget it.

“Something’s happened,” she said at last. “Can I help?”

Ignoring the cackling hens, the dusty air, the stink, indifferent to the muck smearing his tunic, Morgan turned to pace the cramped coop.

“My patents are denied. Sallis Arkley, he lives to thwart me. Made some nonsense claim that my magework lacks sophistication. He’s a fool. I am three times the mage he will ever be and yet—”

A bubble of laughter escaped her before she could burst it. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, as he whipped round. “Only, well, now you know how I feel.”

“You think your disappointments are comparable to mine?”

Irked by his dismissive scorn, she folded her arms. “Yes, I do, Councillor. And why shouldn’t I?”

Scowling, he looked away. A victory. Then he dragged a hand down his face.

“I challenged the ruling. There was… a dispute. Now I’m stood down from the Council. Sent home to rusticate.”

Two bruises to his pride with one well-placed blow. No wonder he was stormy. So stormy he’d not stopped to think. “Perhaps Lord Arkley has done you a favour.”

The councillor scowled. “How so?”

“Well, every hour you’re not in Elvado, fretting over petty rules and getting into arguments, is another hour you can spend on your magework. And since he thinks you defeated, Lord Arkley will find someone else to upset. That’s all to the good.”

He stared at her, an oddly arrested look on his face. And then his lips quirked in a brief smile. “That’s very true. How devious you are, Barl. I think I approve. And I told you to call me Morgan.”

It was dangerous, surely, to feel such pleasure hearing that. She did her best not to show it.

“Anyway, you shouldn’t care what an old frog like Sallis Arkley says. Could he have reconfigured Hartigan’s transmutation incant? Would it even have occurred to him that he could try?”

Morgan’s face lit up with laughter, banishing the discontent, making him beautiful again. “Devious and disrespectful. No wonder I—”

She waited for him to finish. When he didn’t, she busied herself emptying the next laying box of fouled straw.

“Barl…”

He was right behind her. She didn’t have to turn round to know it, she could feel him, his heat and power. Her lips tingled, remembering that fierce, devouring kiss.