Minutes before, he’d returned from the tunnels again; he’d just stripped off his shirt and dropped into bed when she knocked. He smelled like horses and mud. In fact, as he blundered across the room to answer the door, he found a streak of mud on his chest, which didn’t even make sense. It wasn’t like he led Estillans through the tunnels shirtless.

Then he opened the door, saw Bitterblue, and woke up.

She blinked at him. “Oh good,” she said. “I heard a rumor you were back.”

“Come in while I find a shirt,” he said.

“Don’t do it for my sake,” she said, which was one of the only flirtatious things she’d ever said to him in their entire acquaintance and subsequently threw him into such confusion that he decided to disappear into his bathing room on the pretense of cleaning up. Luckily he was filthy, so it was a believable retreat. Of course, while he was splashing water on himself, Lovejoy burst through the open window, nearly giving him a heart attack.

When he came out a moment later, dressed and with what he hoped was an imperturbable expression, Bitterblue was curled up in his big chair with Lovejoy purring in her lap. It made his heart hurt.

She waved a letter at him. “You know Skye’s in Winterkeep now?” she said. “He’s written a letter and I haven’t opened it yet. I wanted to read it with you. In case it’s bad news.”

He paused, studying her. “You’re worried about Katu,” he said. “You’re serious about Katu, aren’t you?”

“I’m serious about making sure he’s okay,” she said, that pucker appearing between her eyebrows. “And I’m terrified of learning that my men were drowned on purpose. If they were, I won’t be able to forgive myself.”

“Bitterblue,” he said, sitting on the big chair beside her. “If something like that happened, then it’s entirely the responsibility of the person who drowned them.”

“I know,” she said, then raised her eyes to his face. “But you know how it is.”

Of course he did. The queen felt responsible for everyone. “I know.”

She opened the letter and held the page out for him to see, her fingers flashing with gold. “The key is ‘bratty little brother,’” she said, which was adorable, as it had to be a reference to Skye’s brother Po, who was a grown man and the furthest thing from a brat. But it was also superfluous information, as Bitterblue would decipher the entire letter in the time it took Giddon to make out the first line.