Well.

Isolde jumps on Olani’s horse faster than I can think to claim it. That leaves me wedged uncomfortably between Raze and his roan horse, squished back against his broad chest with his arms squeezing me from either side.

Raze and the horse don’t seem too excited about it, either.

“I usually like to get to know a girl a little better before getting this cozy with her,” Raze says as we start down the road. I can’t see him, but I picture the anger in his glare as he reluctantly struck our deal with Isolde. This new tone of voice is such a quick turnaround that it must be an act. But why would he pretend to stop being angry? How can he joke at a time like this?

“We don’t have to talk,” I snap, because if he thinks he can trick me into sparing him the acidity I feel with smooth words, he needs to think again.

“We don’t have to,” he agrees. “But it would help pass the time.”

I say nothing.

Before long, the pressure of being squeezed in Raze’s arms makes me feel like I’m going to scream. I don’t like being touched in the best of circumstances, and with the burning marks down my arms stinging more and more with every one of the horse’s steps, it’s unbearable.

Besides the physical discomfort, the all-consuming, skin-crawling nearness of a boy whose relationship to me is best described as not killing each other—for now! is excruciating. I need to think about something else. Anything else.

“Why were you there last night, anyway?” I blurt. He didn’t seem to know what he was after any more than we did, but what are the odds that in a manor with hundreds of rooms, we’d end up behind the same locked door, vying for the same treasure? Maybe he knows more about it than he’s telling.

There’s no reply, and for a moment I think that Raze didn’t hear me. Or maybe he’s decided to ignore me now. Then he says, “To talk to pretty girls, mostly.”

Glaring at him isn’t worth the effort of twisting my aching neck around, so I settle for staring intensely at the space between the horse’s ears. “I was being serious.”

“So was I.”

Fate, he’s irritating. If he’s trying to prove that he can shut down any question or attempt at conversation, or to make some kind of point about the irony of me trying to talk after cutting his efforts off so coldly just moments ago, it’s working.

“Never mind,” I mutter.

For some reason, that seems to offend him. “Well, what were you doing there, changeling?”

“Don’t call me that,” I say, ignoring the question.

After a lingering pause, he lets out a little snort. “Well, if I can’t call you that, and I can’t call you Seelie, then what am I allowed to call you?”

“How about you just don’t talk to me at all?” I suggest.

“Ah, but you’re the one who started this conversation, Iselia.”