However, the night would not last forever and I did not wish my husband, maddeningly attentive since he had injured me so greatly with his angry words after the attack on the palace, to find me gone.

And he might. The magic I’d used to keep him and his men slumbering peacefully while I departed didn’t last forever either.

I had to go back.

But Aramus had told me that we would stay as long as I wished, and we’d journey to join the others in Notting Thicket only when I was ready.

So tomorrow night, I’d steal away again, to the depths and be home for a spell.

Home and free.

And the night after that, the same.

Then, I knew, we should resume our journey.

Farah was grieving.

Silence was adjusting.

And Elena had much on her plate, with a mother I perceived was quite ill (though she attempted to hide it) and with Elena herself facing a marital union with a mortal enemy that would not be taken well in his land, or possibly hers.

Not to mention, all the things Aramus wished to do when we returned home.

All of this after we defeated an apparently loath-to-surface Beast.

As much as I’d like to remain for weeks, we couldn’t dally.

But Aramus had given me this. He’d gone out of his way to give me this. He’d been tremendously discourteous (leaving before the death ceremony was rude to the point of disrespectful, but he didn’t care, he was on a mission). The journey had not been enjoyable (this land was hot and there was a great deal of it). We’d face more on the trek to Wodell.

But we were here.

Solely because I desired to be here.

I did not wish for this to cause a chink in the armor I’d erected around my heart to protect it against my husband.

He was arrogant.

He was thoughtless.

When he was angry, or overly emotional, vicious things came out of his mouth.

He clearly spent far too much time around men and had no watery clue how to handle a woman.

And he spent equally too much time being crown prince and then king, thus thinking the very earth and all its seas rotated around him.

But as I flipped my fin and glided toward the shore (dipping to swim deep on occasion), I could not deny that having this, having Aramus go so far out of his way to give me this, did not put a chink in that armor.

A wee one.

But it was there all the same.

That was, I felt that until I surfaced closer to shore and noted a lone figure standing where I left my nightclothes on the sandy beach.

A figure I knew was my husband.