“Yes. It is,” Liam said, without rancor. He smiled at Raisa. “Princess Raisa, I will be here for a few more days before I return to Tamron,” he said. “I’m staying in Kendall House. I hope to see you again before I leave.” He bowed and turned away.

Micah looked after him for a long moment, then took hold of Raisa’s arm to lead her from the ballroom.

She pulled free. “I know the way,” she said, and walked away, leaving him to follow. She would have liked to have spent more time with Liam Tomlin, and was tired of being dragged around by the Bayars.

“What does my mother want?” Raisa asked as they threaded their way between groups of people still talking in the corridor. “I haven’t seen her for hours. I thought by now she’d likely gone to bed.”

“Not yet,” Micah said, not answering her question. He seemed tense, and Raisa suspected he’d been drinking again.

Raisa herself had been careful not to drink anything but water and oversweet punch. It was her custom to try to learn from experience.

As they neared the queen’s apartments, the corridors emptied out. Automatically, Raisa turned off the public corridors into the narrower, private ones used by the royal family. As they passed the small library established by her father, Micah said, “Raisa, before we go in, give me a minute. Please.”

She turned to face him. He nodded toward the library. “Just hear me out. I promise it won’t take long.” He fussed with his sleeves, seeming uncharacteristically awkward.

Against all common sense, she believed him. After a long moment, she preceded him into the library, putting a table between them.

“I’ve been trying to get in to see you, ever since the party,” he said. “I wanted to tell you that I did not know about the ring and the necklace. I didn’t realize they were enchanted.”

He was admitting they were jinxpieces, then, that Lord Bayar had lied to the queen. Raisa folded her arms. “Why should I believe you?”

He shrugged. “Because, as you’ll see, I have no reason to lie to you.”

She tilted her head. “What do you mean,‘as you’ll see’?”

He ignored the question. “And because I’d like to think that I’m able to attract a girl on my own.”

“Depends on the girl,” Raisa said acerbically. “I hear you have had some success in the past.”

He half smiled, shrugging his shoulders, reminding her of why she’d always found him so attractive.

“When you…when you seemed receptive, I assumed you’d finally succumbed to my personal charm,” Micah said. “Imagine my disappointment when I learned that you had been bewitched, not by me, but by an amulet.”

“And several glasses of wine,” Raisa couldn’t resist saying.