One of the horses nickered and leaned down to push their nose against mine, and I stroked the soft, velvety skin there. “Hello,” I said.

“Hi.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the reply that definitely had not come from a horse. My eyes darted around before latching onto a figure hiding up in the rafters of the stables. He smiled at me, and I scowled back.

“You nearly gave me a heart attack, Rose!”

Rosamund shrugged and with catlike grace, dropped from the rafters to the ground. “You’re the stag. I don’t think you can have heart attacks.”

“You know what I mean,” I huffed in frustration. “What the hell were you doing up there anyway?”

“Well,” Rose replied, “I saw Soren sulking in the armory, and I figured that meant you also must be sulking but in a different place, and so Seppo and I battled for who gets to talk to whom, and I was lucky enough not to get the person who can literally rip hearts out of bodies with his bare hands.”

Oh gods. Soren was going to kill Seppo if he tried anything. I shook my head. Not my hunting party, not my hunters.

“You two can be so absolutely petty and stubborn when you want to be. Like, as much as I would say goblinkind is not known for our good communication skills, you and Soren kind of make the bar go to an entirely different level.”

“We have good communication skills!” I said, glaring.

“Yeah, that’s exactly why neither of you can admit when there’s a problem, and instead pretend nothing is wrong until you both come to your senses and actually say something,” Rose said, voice dripping with acid.

“Okay, we have some snares, but I’m not about to get relationship advice from someone who chased a horse around the Permafrost all day as a present for someone not even born yet.”

Rosamund had the gall to look offended. “We had that situation completely under control.”

“Under control, my ass,” I muttered. “Look, I tried talking to him, and it ended up a disaster. So, now what?” I leaned my head back against the stall door and closed my eyes as a headache began to brew beneath my eyelids.