“Can’t say I disagree,” he growls with a devilish glint in his eye. I can only roll my eyes at him for what feels like the millionth time as we walk to the small terrace built off the side of the palace. As soon as we walk outside, the frigid air cools my flushed cheeks. “Fuck, it’s cold. I know I say that literally every time we walk outside. But fuck,” Thorne says, exasperated and shivering, though still looking every inch a prince.

“You’re so whiny,” I tease, even as I wrap him in a warm magical embrace.

“Thanks,” he says, and I give him a flirtatious wink. Suddenly, snow begins to fall around us in thick, dense flakes. Thorne’s eyes light up as he stares up at the sky. “Is this snow?”

“What do you mean, is this snow? Of course it is!”

Thorne shrugs. “I’ve never seen it. Doesn’t snow in Velmara.”

My jaw practically drops to the floor. “Seriously?”

He places his hand over his heart. “I swear it on what little honor I have. Which is practically none. So you’ll never know, I guess.” He winks.

I giggle, the sound so unfamiliar to my ears that I almost choke. Thorne smirks at me like he knows the effect he has on me, but it sends me spiraling. Am I just another pretty face among a sea of beautiful females? Do I look just like Aria does when she’s near him, fawning and blushing every time he looks my way? I study him closely, looking for answers I know I won’t find. When he notices, his eyes turn serious.

“What was all that about, anyway? With Carex? Is he still talking about the guards seeing me? It didn’t look like a conversation between advisors to me.” He says the words with forced nonchalance, like he’s making a joke with a friend, but I can see his tensed shoulders through that tight suit jacket.

I smirk. “Not your business.”

“But I gave you such a pretty necklace. Doesn’t that at least give me the honor of being the friend who you tell all your boy troubles to,” he says with a mock pout, flecks of snow turning his hair and beard white, and I can’t help the laugh that escapes me.

“Fine,” I say, groaning. “He wanted to resume our former affair.”

Thorne’s eyes dilate and his nostrils flare. “And I’m assuming you don’t want to, judging by how quickly you tried to get away from him.”

“Not even a little. I told you, he’s afraid of my magic. Afraid of me. I can’t be with someone like that.”