“You’ve gotten mildly smarter.”

“And you’ve gotten slightly longer with your explanations,” I tease.

He snorts, but I know him enough by now to know that’s his version of laughter. The hall becomes familiar eventually, going thin and entirely lined with dozens of doors.

Yorl pauses before our door, looking over at me. “I’m…I have to confess. I’m nervous.”

I cock my head. “What? Why?”

“Your friends are in here, aren’t they?”

I pat his broad shoulder. “One of them’s out here in the hall, too.”

The flicker of his lashes against the gloom of the hall tells me everything I need to know—surprise. He’s not one to be easily surprised, Yorl. He’s like me. He knows things, and accounts for things, and predicts things ahead of time. To keep safe, to accomplish goals. We’re both planners, schemers, and that’s what I like best about him. Us. As I push the door open and Lucien bolts up from his chair and Malachite hefts off the wall and Fione grips her cane and stands, all their eyes fall on me, not him.

Lucien’s over in two strides, taking my hands, glancing his way down my body as if studying me, his gaze heavy with onyx concern.

“Did they—”

“I managed to wheedle some painkillers out of them,” I lilt. “So ease up on the worried look, okay? It doesn’t suit Your Highness.”

His laugh is small, but the kiss he leans into and gives me is anything but.

“I warned you about that title,” he murmurs when we part.

“And I warned you about kissing girls,” I whisper conspiratorially back. “Who knows what’s going to happen after this. I might even fall in love with you.”

“Here we go again.” Malachite rolls his eyes to the ceiling. On their way down they catch on Yorl. “Who’s this?”

“Yorl,” I pull myself out of the intimate spell of Lucien and motion to the celeon. “He’s my friend. And, by some stroke of luck, he works here.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Yorl snorts, then realizes everyone’s looking at him. He makes a quick, polite bow. “Yorl Farspear-Ashwalker, Adjutant of the Black Archives. I was—” He shakes his mane. “I am the one who aided Varia in getting the Bone Tree.”

“Ah!” Malachite muses. “I knew you looked familiar. You’re the guy I helped catch the valkerax for.”

“One and the same,” Yorl agrees. “Thank you again for your aid.”

“Psh.” The beneather waves his hand. “That was nothing. I could capture valkerax in my sleep. With eleven other beneathers also sleeping,” he adds.

Yorl goes stiff upon seeing Lucien, and I remember their flash of a confrontation, back before the Bone Tree was found. But this time, Lucien nods at him, and Yorl eases into a nod back.