If she stayed in her room all weekend, that would be fine by her.

When she got back to her room, she collapsed onto her bed. Her heart was racing, and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to scream or laugh or cry. Because she had never been so undone by a kiss. When their lips had met, every nerve in her body had lit up, as if by magic. Except the kiss hadn’t been magic. It had been better.

And she should have never, ever let it happen.

She’d spent her whole life suspecting that the things other people were feeling, and the way they were feeling them, didn’t apply to her. And it wasn’t just the magic that coursed through her veins. It was this secret worry that the parts of her that were supposed to be the same as everyone else’s . . . weren’t. And the fear that, if she tried to explain, no one would understand.

It was so confusing, having feelings for someone regardless of their gender, and realizing not everyone felt the same way. How simple and straightforward it sounded, to like just one gender.

Trying to guess at someone else’s feelings was hard enough, but adding her own into the mix was an undeniable path to heartbreak, every time.

First with Kira, the blacksmith’s daughter. They had started as friends, but one afternoon in the meadow, they had become more. It had lasted barely a fortnight. Before the wildflowers gave way to autumn leaves, Kira was engaged to a cleric in a neighboring village, and acted as though Emry meant nothing.

Next, there had been the traveling playwright with soulful eyes and ink-stained fingers, who had undressed her in poems, and then in his room at the inn, until she’d discovered he had a wife and son back home.

The blacksmith’s boy, who had looked like his sister, but was half as clever, and had stunk like an alehouse besides. All of them mistakes, regrets, scars.

And now, Arthur. The last person in the world she had any right to kiss.

Just thinking about him made her chest flutter, and her heart wish for the impossible. Made her imagine that he was simply a boy, and not a prince. That she was simply a girl, and not a wizard. That she hadn’t mistaken his feelings for friendship for so long. Because he was interested, wasn’t he?

Except how could he be, when all he knew was this frustrating fiction? When he thought her to be her useless, disappointing brother?