I leaned forward and pointed to my forehead. “Tell me if you see IDIOT written on there.”

“Scared?”

I shrugged. “Scared of what will happen after I ruin your face and Hibla starts a massacre.”

“You have my word I won’t let you anywhere near my face.”

“Let?”

Hugh grinned.

In another minute, I’d need a rag to mop up all of the smugness dripping off him. “Big talk for someone with a scar on his face.”

“If you win, I’ll tell you how I got it.”

I waved my hand at him. “That’s okay. I don’t want to know that badly.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Does it matter? So far you’ve ducked every question I asked.”

“I didn’t think I had a fighting style,” Hugh said. “If it comes within range, I can kill it, but I thought what I did was a hodgepodge of techniques that worked. It’s not something one ponders: what is my special brand of violence? And then I saw you. Admit it, you felt it.”

I did. I’d never before seen anyone who fought like me. We had been completely in sync, so perfectly that the memory of it was disturbing.

He looked at me. “I want to experience it again. Spar with me.”

“Sorry, but I’m done playing.”

“Kate, come on.”

“I mean it. No.”

Hugh chuckled. “Mean and a tease.”

Below us Curran stood up. Lorelei stood up, too. Now what? Curran walked across the hall and out through the door under the gallery. Lorelei followed him.

“Would you like to spy on the lovebirds?” Hugh asked.

“No.” I didn’t need any favors from him.

“Having the right intelligence is the key to winning a war.”

“I’m not at war.”

“Of course you are, Kate. You’re at war with yourself. A part of you knows that there is more to life than being the Consort. A part of you is wondering if he is betraying you. They are going to talk, whether you listen in or not, and hearing them won’t change what they have to say.” He nodded to the left. “I’m going. Feel free to join me.”

Something inside me snapped. I had to know. I didn’t trust the man I loved enough not to listen in. That said volumes about me and right then I didn’t care. “Fine.”

Hugh walked to the nearest door and held it open. I walked through it into a long curving hallway. I could see a balcony at the end. A light breeze, cold and spiced with the salty dampness of the sea, swirled around me. The sky was a brilliant blue, and against this happy, sunlit turquoise, the pale rail of the balcony seemed to almost glow.