“Not especially.” I bite my lip and force a braid under itself. “I think these were designed to be fastened with magic, actually.”

“Sadistic,” Lucien says, smirking smallish down at me.

“Or ingenious.” I ignore the heat rushing like water through me. “Fairly easy to pick out the spies if they can’t button their trousers like the rest of us.”

“I managed that much, at least.”

I swallow what feels like a quiver of arrows. “S-Sure. Good.”

Warm hands suddenly envelop mine on his shirt, and he presses them to his bare chest. That blazing honey and pepper scent wafts from his neck as he leans down, nudging my chin up and up until finally, finally our lips meet. Streaks of fire tremble from me into him and back again, down to my belly, and Malachite’s squawking and Fione’s chiding fade into nothing, my blood rushing in my ears so much louder, harder, stronger—

Lucien pulls away at the last second of my sanity slipping, eyes clouded.

“I didn’t mean to, so suddenly—”

“It’s okay,” I blurt. “It’s…more than okay.”

“You were just…are just.” He swallows. “Beautiful. And seeing you so immersed, trying so hard.” He pauses. “You stick out your tongue, you know.”

“D-Do I?”

He nods, grinning lopsidedly. “When you’re thinking hard about something.”

“Strange,” I lilt. “Because when you’re thinking hard about something, you make no expression at all.”

“Should I?”

“Maybe. How else will I know to spring a kiss on you out of nowhere?”

His laugh is soft and deep. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Fione sighs at us. “The world includes more people than just you two, you know.”

“Regrettably,” Lucien says, never once looking away from my face as I finish the braid up his shirt with renewed vigor.

“First I guard him with my life for most of my life,” Malachite huffs. “And now he’s saying he wishes I was never born!”

I lay a hand on the prince’s chest to indicate I’m done, and he immediately turns to Malachite and reaches for him, wrapping an arm around his neck and pulling him into a headlock.

“I heard that, Mal.”

“Yeah!” The beneather squirms, clearly able to get out of the grip but allowing it. “Good! You ungrateful little bug!”

Lucien tries to yank him around, but Malachite ducks out of it, turning the tables on the prince and reaching for his collar when Fione taps her cane on the sandstone floor loudly.

“Enough! We can’t keep Lady Y’shennria waiting.”

“She hates tardiness,” I agree lightly. “And clams. But mostly tardiness.”