“No,” Han said. “I wanted to see you one last time before the coronation.” After a moment’s hesitation, he took her arm and led her over to the bench by the fishpond—the same bench Raisa and Amon had shared the night he’d returned to the Fells from Oden’s Ford more than a year ago.

Raisa sat, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. Han sat next to her, staring out at the pond, seeming at a loss for something to say.

At least the cold, distant Alister was gone, temporarily, at least.

“Tomorrow night, there’ll be fireworks,” Raisa said, to fill the silence. “At the end of the ball. This would be a good place to watch from.” She chewed on a fingernail, then dropped her hands quickly. It wouldn’t do to ruin her hands for tomorrow.

Probably a lost cause anyway.

“Remember the night we met at Oden’s Ford?” Han said, still looking straight ahead. “There were fireworks that night, too.

“I do remember,” Raisa said. “It seems like a long time ago.”

“Not so long,” Han said.

A breeze swept down off Hanalea, rattling the glass, carrying the sting of high country snows. Raisa shivered, and Han slipped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close. The heat of him soothed her, loosening the tight coil of worry wound up inside her.

“There’s something about a roof, isn’t there?” Han said. “It makes you feel like it doesn’t matter what’s going on below. All of those things that get in the way of your dreams—you’re above them. Anything is possible.”

“Anything is possible,” Raisa repeated. Once again, her eyes welled with tears.

What was the matter with her? She wanted to be queen. She’d fought for it, struggled to get back to the Fells to protect her right to the throne. Was she just weepy over her mother’s death, all those lost opportunities, or was it something else?

Was she closing a door that could never be reopened? Was she making a trade she would eventually regret?

Choose love, Hanalea had said. Raisa was acutely aware of Han’s presence next to her. Once she was queen, that door would be closed forever.

“You know, this is where Queen Hanalea used to meet with Alger Waterlow,” Han said, shocking her out of her reverie.

“What?”

“They used to come up here and make love in this rooftop garden,” Han said, stretching out his long legs. “Before they ran off to Gray Lady. Now there was a queen who wasn’t afraid to take a chance.”

Right, Raisa thought. Hanalea took a chance, and see where it got her.

“Who told you that?” Raisa said. “I never heard that story.” She shivered again, as if ghosts were stroking her shoulders with their cold fingers.