I jerked my head up to Anton.
Even in the dull light, I saw color sweep his cheeks. He cleared his throat. “We’re married now. I married my cousin.”
Tosya’s brows lifted as he suppressed a grin. “You have my congratulations.”
Anton gave him a warning look.
“Very well.” Ruta frowned. “But I don’t want any trouble. Go to the parlor and keep your voices low. I won’t have you waking the other guests.” As Tosya descended the stairs, Ruta tugged her shawl closer. “There’s a tray of bread and jam in the kitchen, and a bottle of kvass in the cupboard.”
“We’ll be fine,” Tosya assured her. “Get some sleep.”
She grumbled, muttering to herself as she hobbled back to where her upstairs room must have been.
“I think she likes you,” I whispered when I was sure she was gone.
“I’m a favorite with all the ladies.” Tosya preened himself by smoothing his vest.
I laughed, and he hopped off the last step and swooped me up in his arms. He kissed my cheek and set me down. “Did you get shorter?”
“No.” I smacked his chest. “You got taller.”
“That’s what my friends keep telling me, but I have this theory that everything in the world keeps shrinking but myself.”
“Hmm. I think your education gave you an ego.”
“A necessary requirement of a poet. That and a wide range of insecurities.”
I laughed again and shook my head as I breathed in all of him. He carried the scent of the forest mulch and campfires surrounding the Romska wagons. His aura was equally familiar—light on the surface, but beautifully deep and awe-inspiring beneath, like the sea under shallows where the sunlight reaches. “It’s so good to see you.”
“And you.” His humor simmered to something more sincere for a moment. Then he clapped Anton’s arm. “I can’t believe you went off and got married without telling me!”
The prince lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Don’t start. I had to say something since you were tripping all over your words. You’re better with a quill, you know.”
Tosya scowled at him and threw me a teasing smile. “Your husband is frank to a fault.”
Anton groaned. “Shall we move to the parlor?”
“And domineering,” I added.
Anton brushed past us, muttering, “Maybe it was a mistake bringing you two together.”
Tosya and I giggled like naughty children and fell in tow behind him.
The parlor was at the back, down a narrow hallway and adjacent to the kitchen. Everything in the lodging was a little off-kilter, from the slanting floors to the crooked windowsills and doorframes. But with Tosya at my side, the place was starting to grow on me.
We sat around a small, circular table, probably meant for a game of cards. Our three pairs of knees kept colliding—Anton’s because he sat closer to me, and Tosya’s due to the length of his legs.
Tosya set his candle on the table and leaned forward, his chin propped on a knuckled hand. “I never imagined I’d see the two of you under the same roof. How is it you know each other?”
Anton glanced back to the hallway. In a quiet voice, he answered, “She is the sovereign Auraseer.”
Tosya turned large eyes on me, which swiftly softened. “Oh, Sonya . . . I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”
I swallowed and fought to resist his pity. “It isn’t so bad.” When he didn’t reply but only stared at me, his aura tightening my throat, I added, “At least I have Anton.” I’d chosen my words poorly. I’d made it sound like I owned him or belonged to him or that we were somehow more . . . more than what we were.
Anton’s leg settled against mine beneath the table and made the complicated energy entwining us pulse with more intensity. I felt Tosya’s piqued curiosity, as if he wondered, all joking aside, what the prince and I really meant to each other. If he’d asked us directly, I wasn’t sure we could have answered.
Tosya sighed and templed his fingers at his mouth as he gazed at me. “We were so good at hiding you.” I knew he meant my days with his caravan and countless others. “I thought we could hide you forever. Now to see you found . . . like this . . .” He shook his head. “What a life for you.”