Please tell them it was nothing, and that right now all I want is a nap.
Let them give you their thanks. What you did by claiming them and climbing on that pyre saved all of their lives. No witch has ever fought with them before.
Yeah, well, I don’t deserve to be worshipped for that.
Ah, the price of greatness. Smile and wave, Lily.
Lily wanted to throw something at Rowan’s head. He grinned and abandoned her there with Breakfast, Una, and her Tristan to help her accept gifts. In between polite smiles and gracious nods, she watched Rowan as he made his way to Alaric. They embraced each other like brothers and immediately left with the other Tristan and Caleb to talk privately in Alaric’s carriage. Lily frowned, feeling like she should be the one to talk to Alaric.
“Lily!” Juliet called as she zigzagged her way through the crowd.
Lily gestured for her sister to join her. “Juliet! I’m dying over here.”
Juliet laughed as she hugged Lily. “I’m glad you’re back.” She pulled away and scanned Lily from head to toe. “You look like hell.”
“Save me?”
“Can’t. You have to stay here and take it like a big girl. We’ll talk later,” Juliet said, still grinning from ear to ear. She looked good. Her dress wasn’t fancy, and the turquoise beads around her wrists were a far cry from the sapphires she used to wear, but her cheeks were rosy and her eyes shone. Juliet hugged Lily one last time and then negotiated her way through the crowd toward Alaric’s carriage. Lily noticed that the guards flanking the entrance let Juliet enter without a second thought.
After an hour of accepting presents, two older women came forward and coaxed Lily and Una away from the crowd. The women brought them to a steamy tent that had two large tubs of heated water in the middle. The old women started peeling Una’s and Lily’s dirty clothes off them.
“How do you say I can undress myself in Native American?” Una asked, blushing furiously.
“No idea,” Lily replied. “I think we’re just supposed to go with it.”
The woman gathered up the dirty and torn clothes and left Lily and Una to bathe. The soapy water was fragrant with dried flowers, and Una and Lily gladly scrubbed every inch of their filthy bodies before settling in for a long soak.
When they were dried and wrapped in clean robes, the women led Una one way and Lily another. Lily was taken to one of the larger armored wagons, rather than a tent. She noticed that flowers and fruit had been laid on the steps up to the door. It didn’t seem right to just step over it all. As she was shuttling the gifts one bunch at a time into the carriage she heard Rowan’s voice behind her.
“You can just leave it,” he told her. “We’ll do that in the morning.”
“Good! I’m so tired,” Lily replied gratefully. She noticed that Rowan’s clothes were different and his hair was wet from a bath. He looked calm and relaxed. His gaze slid up one of her bare legs, still pink and dewy from her long soak.
“Not too tired, I hope,” he said quietly. Lily started up the steps, suddenly shy, and he followed her into the carriage, watching the way her body moved under her loose robe. He closed the iron-studded door and came toward her slowly.
Lily looked down at the heap of melons in her arms and back up at him, feeling ridiculous. “My last armload was all flowers, which would have made me look wildly sexy. But of course you show up when I’m carrying cantaloupes.”