“No,” James said, “I expect Cordelia will want to spend all her time with Lucie—they’re to be parabatai someday. Of course, Lucie is also writing her book, so there may well be times when I really should spend time with Cordelia, as a good host. I mean, whatever she likes. Obviously, if she wanted to spend every day with me, that would be all right—”

He stopped, realizing that he had become entirely crazed sometime in the past ten seconds. Grace was being very polite about it. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I did not mean to suggest—”

Grace laughed lightly. “Nonsense! I know you mean well, James. You’re just in love with Cordelia.”

James was horrified. “I am fond of her, that is all. We are friends, as you and I are.”

“Oh?” Grace said. “And if she arrives here in Idris and tells you she has met the most wonderful man and they have had a whirlwind romance and now they are promised to each other? You would only congratulate her like you would any of your friends?”

“I would tell her she was too young to get married,” James said stiffly. The truth was that when he thought of Cordelia marrying someone else, it felt like being kicked in the heart. With a start, he realized that in his vague imaginings of the future Cordelia had always been there, a steady, welcome presence, a warm light in the dark of the unknown.

“Cruel Prince James strode into the chamber, his cape flashing behind him and his terrible, terrible mustache askew with rage,” Lucie narrated the moment James walked through the door.

“Does it need be said twice that it’s terrible?” James said.

“He required a hot beverage to soothe his throat, parched from barking out his wicked commands all day. Tea, he thought, yes, tea and revenge.”

“I’ll just go put the kettle on,” James sighed.

“What a strange sort of friendship we have,” Grace said. They were back at Blackthorn Manor, James clipping away at the briars along the high stone wall, and Grace on the other side, ambling along with him. He caught glimpses of her every once in a while as they walked, through gaps in the stone. “It’s a pity you can’t turn into a shadow and come join me, on my side of the wall.”

James stopping clipping. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Maybe I could. He put down the shears in the grass and looked at his hands. He did not know what to do. He thought hard of nothingness, of the gray of the shadow realm. With a start, he stumbled forward through the wall.

He recovered himself. He was still a shadow, though he was not in the shadow realm: he stood very clearly inside the garden walls of Blackthorn Manor. There was overgrown grass everywhere—and Grace, staring at him.