The next morning, I don’t wake up in my world. No, I wake up with my head on Peter’s chest, and he’s still asleep, and I’m hungover, and oh god—last night comes rushing back, raunchy scenes bleeding together in my mind like a bad trip. As if he can sense my eyes on him, his open as well, and he gives me a long look—which I return.


    I hate that he’s beautiful. The black hair that falls into his face, the dark depths of his gaze, even his scar that slices his eyebrow in two—it’s unfair, really, to get to look like that.


    And he . . . wanted me?


    “Let’s not think of it as a mistake,” he says, his voice surprisingly soft as he takes in what is probably a very dazed look on my face.


    Even though it is. A mistake, I mean.


    But I just say, “Okay.”


    His hand cards through my hair, settling onto my cheek. Last night, my face still felt a bit raw from the burns, but now . . . I think I’m back to normal. Peter’s fingers brush against the new, healed skin—warm, gentle, he’s so confusing. Then he smiles, that wicked, wolfish thing he does that makes my nerve endings spark like a fork in a socket. “Martin will be jealous,” he says.


    “Pfft.” Oh please. I sigh and roll my eyes. “Of me or of you?”


    He laughs. “Just . . . jealous.”


    This guy. He’s unpredictable, and I’m reckless. We are not a good pairing. And it is a mistake. Martin’s right; I shouldn’t have let him stay here—this is the guy I thought was going to kill me at one point. What the hell is wrong with me?


    It’s cause we were drunk. That’s why. Right?


    A bout of shame turns my stomach over. I called Eliana stupid so many times when reading The Tales of Alvione, but now I know one thing for sure: I’m dumber than her. I was feeling hopeless, and he was looking hot, and he was listening to me, and that’s all it took.


    I can’t keep doing that.


    First Trix and now Peter? I can’t just fuck my anxiety away. It’s not fair to anyone.


    (No . . . I can’t think about Trix. If she reads the book, she’ll know I just think of her as a . . . Oh god, it’s too late, isn’t it?)


    Then an equally intrusive thought interrupts the last one: What does it matter? If I died over there, I can’t go back anyway. I feel as though a hand has taken hold of my gut and is twisting it, squeezing tight.


    Peter’s thumb runs along my cheek and down to my lips, returning me to the present. I give him a dizzied look as my eyes focus on his jaw, his mouth, his furrowed brows—and the small smile that brightens his face. I hear myself murmur, “You’re trying to keep me from spiraling, aren’t you?”


    “Please,” he huffs. “I’m much more self-centered than that.” He pulls me in closer so my face is pressed to his bare chest, inundated with his warmth, as he runs his fingers through my hair. I wrap my arms around him instinctively, the closeness pushing away my anxieties and replacing them with an unsteady feeling of comfort. His skin is scarred but soft, and the faintest smell of burnt wood lingers in the air around us, even a day after the fire. Still, the scent of him overwhelms even that, filling my senses with a heady mix of sweat and spice, something I can’t quite define. Though my mind spins, my body craves this—craves the feeling of not being alone.


    Am I pathetic, or am I just human? Is there a difference?


    “Would it be that bad,” he whispers, “if you were stuck here?”


    Now that’s a serious question. One I don’t have the answer to.


    I’m not sure I care. I’m not sure it matters. I’m not sure any of it is even my choice at the end of the day.


    I turn my chin up toward his face, and our eyes meet.


    I . . . can’t do this.


    “I’m going to go find Martin,” I say without thinking. “We need to meet up with Leon today.”The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    He blinks and lets out a small, surprised sound as I disentangle from his limbs and start picking my clothes up off the floor. He watches me pull on my underwear silently for a moment, then says, “You are strange.”


    I search the dress for a zipper before I remember they don’t have zippers here, then start pulling it on like a pair of pants instead. “How so?”


    “You are very . . . unaffected.”


    I pause and tilt my head at him, trying not to look as jittery as I feel. “Oh. Well, yeah.” I finish pulling on the dress and start tying down the random strings that hang all over it, my fingers gripping the threads so roughly it seems they might snap. “I mean, this is just a casual thing, isn’t it?”


    Peter just stares. “. . . Is it?”


    I tug the last few strings taut, tightening the dress across my chest, then swirl them into awkward bows. “I don’t know, is it?” Then I shake my head. “What am I doing? I don’t have time for this. There’s too much to do.” I cross the room to the door and step into my shoes, my head swirling. I turn to face him before I leave. He’s still tucked into my bed, the blanket in a disarray across his lower half. His face wears a blend of confusion and surprise, his mouth slightly ajar as he looks at me like a lost puppy. I pause, then in a moment of weakness, approach him. I cup his face gently, lean in, and plant a chaste kiss onto his open mouth, which snaps shut in response. When I draw back, I see his soft gaze spinning with conflicting emotions. “We’ll talk about this later, okay?”


    His hand lifts and holds my wrist gently, as if begging me to stay. “I have spent many years treating the people I take to bed the way you are treating me now,” he says softly. “I believe I finally understand why they seemed to despise it so much.”


    Ouch. “Do you hate me?”


    He shakes his head slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. “I am not sure I can.”


    “Give it time,” I joke weakly. I slip out of his grasp and head out into the hall. A heavy exhale falls from my lips as the door shuts behind me. What the fuck am I doing? But there’s no time to wonder—I have priorities. I am a queen, I am a barista, I am nothing and everything and—


    One thing at a time.


    Martin is smoking up a storm when I find him, bent over the windowsill in his room and puffing smoke out into the spring air at a pace that can’t be healthy.


    “Whoa whoa whoa. What are you doing?” I cross the room and pluck the cigarette from his fingers before he even registers that I’m there. He starts and tries to snatch it back, but I hold it out of reach.


    “What do you think I am doing?” he snaps. “I did not exactly get the most peaceful rest last night.” I freeze at his words, and he takes the opportunity to delicately reclaim the cigarette, then shove it between his teeth. “You’re very loud, you know?” he grumbles as he turns back to the window and releases another cloud of smoke.


    “I . . . uh . . . Are you mad?”


    His brow drops low over his eyes as he gives me a deadpan look. “Really? What are you, a child?” He lets out a little laugh. “Well, clearly not a child.”


    A flash of annoyance courses through me at his petty little remarks. “Peter thinks you’re jealous,” I say before I can stop myself.


    Martin bursts out laughing at that, smoke shooting out his nose. Coughing mixes in with the laughter, and he pulls the cigarette from his lips as he waves his hand in front of his face, trying to recover. When he does, he says carefully, “He certainly has been trying for a while to . . . Well, you know.” I raise an eyebrow, though I can’t say I’m shocked. “But I do not take his . . . propositions seriously. Peter has a reputation for indulging in excessive sexual relations.”


    I pretend not to notice how he leaves me out of the equation entirely and sit down on the windowsill beside him. There’s barely enough space for both of us, and my knees bump against his. “Do you judge him for that?”


    Martin’s eyes meet mine, and I see a hint of hurt there—like it offends him that I’d think so little of him. I feel a twinge of guilt for this, to top off my growing mountain of guilt for everything else. “Of course not,” he says quietly. “But I would not indulge in such a thing with someone who tried to hurt you.” His words cut through me easily, and then his gaze does too as it runs across my face and down to my neck, where it pauses and darkens. He reaches out, his thumb brushing against the sensitive skin there. “Do you still have Miriam’s salve?”


    I don’t have to see it to know what he’s looking at. I remember what happened last night well enough. It may be the only visible hickey, but it’s certainly not the only one. I push through the humiliation. “Yes.”


    “Use it before you meet with Leon. He’s rather innocent. And, I fear, easily devastated.” He gives me half of a smile, though his face is still dominated by worry. His hand slides from the hickey to rest against the back of my neck, and I can’t help but relax into his touch. He lets out a sigh, his cigarette dying out in his fingers as it’s forgotten. “I know you are afraid of what might have happened to you in your world. But that is even more reason for you to be more careful here.”


    My chest trembles as I take a breath. What is it about him that always makes me want to cry? “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I keep letting you down.”


    He just shakes his head, his fingers brushing against my hairline softly. “Do not worry yourself with that. I will always be on your side. Always.”


    A pang. A pain. No one in my world has ever said anything like that to me—not Adam, not even my own mother. “Why? Because I am the queen?” I laugh in a weak attempt to release some of the excess tension that’s begun filling my eyes with tears.


    “Because you are my dearest friend,” he says, and the sincerity in his face shatters the dam easily.


    Can you love a person so much it breaks your heart?


    His hands find their way to my cheeks, brushing away the tears as they fall, and then he brings me close, planting a kiss onto my forehead. “Everything will be alright in the end. I promise you that, Rose. We’re just not there yet.”