“Sometimes I wish I could go—leave—just travel the world like my brother does. No decisions. No worries. Just freedom. Nobody counting on me. Nobody’s lives ruined because I made the wrong choice that day.”

Elisabeth’s eyebrows flickered upward in surprise. She hadn’t really thought about how heavy it must feel to be emperor. Making choices that either fed your people or didn’t, freed them or held them hostage.

“Would you give it up if you could?”

He shook his head without hesitation. “No. I want to be a good emperor. I want to change things. I just wish I could have both. Be emperor most of the time and have an hour each day to be—me.”

Elisabeth’s heart wrapped protectively around him. She wished that for him too. Wished she could be the one to give him those hours, let him forget responsibility for a short time.

What would it feel like for them to forget together? For Elisabeth to kiss that jaw at the hollow where it met neck, to trace a finger up it, jawline to ear. To press him against the dark outline of a tree and tilt her face to his. The thoughts came unbidden, and if Elisabeth’s face hadn’t already been pink, she was sure it would be now. She’d just let go of this. Why was her heart betraying her again?

“If I could give you wings, I would,” she said.

“‘We have not wings, we cannot soar; but we have feet to scale and climb,’” Franz recited, almost to himself.

Elisabeth’s mouth dropped open, unable to contain her surprise. “You’ve read Longfellow?”

Had the emperor just quoted her favorite poet to her? It didn’t feel real. It was like he’d reached straight into her soul and seen what lived there. Poems and wings, nature and longing, truth wrapped in rhymes.

“I read him when I need to feel like the world makes sense.”

She was speechless.

“Is that foolish?” He stopped at a small wrought iron bench, motioned for her to sit with him.

“No, it’s perfect,” she whispered, then realized that might be too honest. “It’s everything I would hope an emperor would be.”

He made a small, surprised noise. “I never thought of poetry being an asset to the empire. I’ve always just read it for myself.”

“What is an asset to the empire, if not poetry?”

Franz paused a long time. “Strength.”

“Poetry is strength.”

He smiled, his mouth twitching upward, the faint light of a nearby garden lamp mirrored in his eyes. “Earlier, you promised me a lesson in speaking my mind. So, tell me now: If you stand up for yourself, go against someone, how do you know you’re right?”

“You don’t.” She shrugged.

“But if you’re the emperor, you must.”

“But if you’re a human, you can’t.”

“You seem certain.”