“Wait until you see their faces when they discover the truth—that I can’t do anything for them.”

“You already did. You gave them safe haven.”

She laughed bitterly. “No, you did that, oblivious to the fact that I was trying to protect you and House Phel.”

“I wasn’t oblivious.” He produced an angelic smile. “I simply ignored you and did what I knew you’d want if you hadn’t been afraid in the moment.”

“I’m still afraid. And my course of action was the smart one, the practical choice.”

He tapped her on the nose. “You would’ve regretted it. If you’d sent them off again, you wouldn’t have forgiven yourself for it.”

“I might have,” she muttered, unwilling to concede that he was right. “You don’t know me that well.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” he replied with warm affection. “I know you considerably better than you want me to.”

He always had, even from that first game he’d played with her in her tower room, finding ways to sneak past her careful defenses, extracting personal details from her like a spy on a critical mission of grave political import. “Gabriel…” She shook her head, her temples throbbing. “This is truly a fight we can’t win. What are we going to do?”

“At least you’re back to considering courses of action rather than stewing in despair,” he noted in satisfaction.

“Are you managing me?”

“How am I doing?” He smiled guilelessly into the face of her suspicion.

She considered lying. Reconsidered. The dread and despair had dissipated. “Remarkably well, actually.”

“Glad to hear it. I’m learning from the best, you know. You talk me down from wizardly eruptions, and I haul you out of the bog of negative thinking. We make a good team.”

“And all this time I thought I was the fire to your water—that I’d be pushing you while you calmed me down.”

His smile widened with genuine delight. “We do that, too. I love that you’ve been thinking of us as a team also.”

Ugh. Now she was giving him ideas. “I haven’t been—”

He stopped her with a finger pressed to her lips. “Don’t ruin it,” he told her sternly.

She smiled, kissed his finger, and purred, “Yes, wizard.”

His expression hardened with desire, even as he shook his head slightly, sighing. “I think you will be my doom, though not in the way you mean.”

That sobered her. “We should discuss plans. We’ll have to—”

“Not yet.” He tugged at her lower lip with the finger resting there. “I want you to see something.”

She waggled her brows at him. “I’ve already seen it, though I agree it’s worth multiple viewings.”

Laughing, he turned her in his lap so she sat with her back against his chest. The sun was burning through the fog, making everything brighter, though still shrouded. “Not that, either,” he said with mock reproach. “I’m not at all clear on how you can go from murderously angry to heartbroken to flirtatious in such a short time.”