He took the torch she handed him, releasing his hold so that it hung in midair near him. Imogen grasped the hand he offered her and hoisted herself onto the altar stone. She settled next to him and eyed the floating torch.

"Nice trick."

"I find it useful at times."

She adopted his pose, hiking up her skirts until they bunched above her knees so she could cross her legs. Cededa bid a mournful goodbye to the small measure of peace he'd found in the solitary rain and hoped he wouldn't combust on the spot at the sight and nearness of his greatest temptation.

"Why are you sitting in the rain?"

He rested his arms over his knees and laced his fingers together. "Because I haven't felt true rain in a long time." He raised his face to the drizzle, hoping its coolness might lower the rising heat in his veins. "Tineroth sits between worlds, unchanged by time or tide. You've seen the way the sun shines here?" Imogen nodded. "It's the same each day—as it was the day my mages betrayed me and consigned Tineroth to a vanishing exile." He blinked droplets from his lashes so he might see her more clearly. Rain dripped from the ends of her dark hair, cascading in silver rivulets down her neck and between the gentle swell of her breasts exposed above her bodice. "Until the solstice, Tineroth exists partially in your world. Thus, the storm and why I pay it my respects."

How pathetic he’d become. Once the greatest king in all the world, he now sat on a cracked altar stone of a long-forgotten god and sought solace in a mundane rainstorm.

"What do you want, Imogen?" His abrupt question shattered the quiet.

Her pale fingers clenched the folds of her dripping skirt, and she stared at her lap. “I’ve come to apologize," she said.

Had she told him there were pink dragons fluttering about the forest surrounding the city, he wouldn’t have been half so surprised. He stared at her, mulling over what she might have done that required an apology. He stiffened. Had she found the hidden spring from which the Waters bubbled? Horror twisted his gut into a dozen knots. Had she found it and drank from it?

“Apologize for what?” he asked through clenched teeth. Sick with dread, he held his breath while he waited for her answer.

She glanced at him briefly before looking away. Tiny raindrops formed jewels on the tips of her eyelashes before falling to splash on her hands. “I forgot my place. Legend you might be, but you are still a king. I’m a hedgewitch’s fosterling.”

Cededa scraped a hand over his face, almost lightheaded with relief. He hadn’t a clue what she was talking about, but she said nothing of the Waters, and he was very good at detecting lies. Imogen didn’t lie.

“I don’t understand,” he said, pleased his voice wasn’t as shaky as his insides felt.

Torchlight revealed her reddening cheeks. “I wanted you to be my teacher, my lover. I overstepped my bounds.”