Each strand of his hair looked as if it were trying to escape the one next to it, sticking up despite the rain, and he wore an ill-fitting tunic under an emerald-green vest with homemade pockets sewn haphazardly across the front. His brown pants were stained with more colors than a rainbow, and he clutched a bundle of papers against his chest. The rest had fallen to the ground when I’d struck him.

He blinked at me with wide green eyes. “Sorry, I wasn’t—I mean, are you—”

I cut him off. “It was my fault. I wasn’t looking.” I bent down to pick up the now damp papers and caught a glimpse of the title written in large, shaky scrawl: Lab Assistant Needed.

“You’re a scientist?” I stood, offering him the papers.

“Yes. Sort of.” He took the stack, warm fingers brushing mine. “An inventor, really.”

He looked more like a soldier or a street fighter. He was as tall as Kiva and twice as thick, with the distinctive golden tan skin of an Ambriellan.

“Anthia!”

I stiffened at Ericen’s voice, immediately starting forward. Ericen’s hand closed around my arm. I felt the heat of his touch, the strength of his hold, but before I could even move, the Ambriellan boy stepped forward. He seized Ericen’s wrist, wrenching it free. In return, Ericen dislodged his hand from the boy’s grasp and grasped a sword handle. All in barely more than a wingbeat.

No one moved. The air felt tight and packed between us like quicksand threatening to suck us in. Mist danced in wisps, curling and winding, obscuring and revealing. I moved ever so slightly between them.

“Ericen, let it go,” I said, voice low.

The prince’s eyes flashed. “He grabbed my arm—”

“And you grabbed mine.”

His jaw tightened, eyes switching from me to the boy at my back. I could feel his body behind me, sense his tension, and hear the sharpness of his breathing.

Slowly, Ericen lowered his hand.

I faced the boy and almost faltered. The bright sea-green of his eyes had turned hard as jade. There was something in them. Something familiar that made my chest ache. He’d crushed the flyers into a roll in one hand, the fingers of the other quivering at his side. Both were peppered with thin white scars.

He saw me looking and tucked his free hand deep into a pocket. Guilt swept through me. I hated when people stared at my burns.

“Sorry.” I met his gaze. The hardness had vanished.

“It’s okay. I just—they always—I mean I can’t—” He stopped. Let out a sharp breath. Shook his head. “Will you be all right?” His eyes flickered to Ericen.

“I’ll be fine. Good night.”

He nodded. I smiled, and he returned it before I followed Ericen back to the carriage with a glower.

Fourteen