“Are you sure? You seemed almost like a dream earlier, vanishing when I looked away.” He was flirting, but there was an undercurrent of something else there. He might not consciously know that she wasn’t human, but an instinctive wariness in him tangled with a desperate hopefulness she’d seen when he drew his more fanciful images. Jayce caught her gaze as he said, “A beautiful girl shows up, saves me, and vanishes into the desert. . . . It’s either a dream or magic.”

Rika couldn’t speak. He thinks I’m beautiful. She should be thinking about the fact that he was implying that she’d vanished, but it was his compliment that made her stare back at him in wonder.

“You did save me, you know. I’m not broken anywhere. Just bruises,” he said in a voice so low that it felt like it was only the two of them in the world.

They were not alone though: not only were there faeries, but Del and Kayley also stood nearby. Del was watching them. Rika could see the couple in her peripheral vision. Kayley spoke to him, but his attention was fixed on Jayce. Despite the twinge she felt at their protective gazes, she was grateful that Jayce had such good friends.

Jayce turned to look over his shoulder, noticing that Rika was looking past him. “They’re okay.” He looked back at her and smiled. “Are you always this shy?”

Without having quite meant to, Rika nodded. She wasn’t used to talking to people. Months would pass when her only conversations were with Sionnach or with Jayce—who until today didn’t hear her because of faery glamour. When she had been the Winter Girl, she hadn’t exactly been beset by social invitations either. She spoke to whichever mortal girl Keenan tried to seduce, to Keenan, and to his advisors and court members. None of them had been faeries she could call friends: they all wanted Keenan to succeed; her job was to thwart him. Those were the terms of the curse that had ensnared her when he’d picked her for the test. If she’d been his missing queen, she would’ve freed him, been beside him for eternity. If she had refused the test, she’d have been his subject—one of the flighty Summer Girls who frolicked and danced. When she took the test and failed, she’d been cursed to carry winter and sworn to attempt to convince the next girl to refuse him. Even though she’d risked everything for Keenan—and lost—she’d been cursed to have to work against him as he tried to find the missing Summer Queen. Her situation hadn’t exactly made her popular.

She forced herself to look only at Jayce. After an awkward silent moment, several heartbeats too long, Rika blurted, “I’ve watched you climb before.”

What a stupid thing to say!