“Quiet,” he growls in my ear. “I didn’t bring you here to talk. I brought you here to help me steal. Listen to what I say, and mayhap I’ll find it in my heart that you wanted so much to return the favor.”

Is that all I have to do? I nod frantically, and he releases every part of me, disappointment lingering where his skin used to be. I let it roll off and catch my breath, watching him peer between the cracks in the crates at what must be his target. When my nerves settle, I look between a crack to see a barrel-laden carriage being unloaded by scores of heavily muscled men. They hoist the barrels into a nearby house, a few lawguards watching their progress.

“A stockpile,” Lucien answers my unsaid question. “The royal stockpile, to be more accurate. A royal polymath comes here to check inventory, quality, and to make sure none of it is poisoned, and then they send everything off to the palace.”

“All of that,” I marvel. “Just for you four?”

“Keeping an aging king on the throne requires a lot of supplements—most of them completely unneeded and overly expensive,” Lucien scoffs. “Thankfully, there’s some actual medicine included in there, too.”

I had an inkling earlier, but now it makes perfect sense. He was seeing what medicines that fleshworker needed as Whisper, not soliciting her as Lucien. Gods, jealousy is a terrible beast that makes clever people so dull. Is this why the bards warn of it so often? I make a solemn pact between myself and I to throw over a cliff the fact I was ever naive enough not to see the truth. Preferably a cliff with a pack of hungry wildcats at the bottom to be rid of the evidence.

I shake myself out and clear my throat. “The last time I checked, Your Highness, the Midnight Gifter didn’t gift medicines to fleshhouses.”

“Neither did he wear underclothes,” Lucien says. “Characters from books don’t tend to make a lot of sense in a real world context. Now, talk less and distract more.”

He motions to the burly line of men, and I stifle a groan.

“Why can’t I be the one who does the neat, stealthy things?”

“Because you’re the only one currently wearing a dress,” the prince says.

“I bet you’d look lovely in a dress.” My mouth fires out the jab faster than I can take it back. Something like a smirk quirks at his lips, but I must be imagining it, because it’s gone in the next blink. He’s giving me this one chance and I joke with it? What is wrong with me?