Page 48 of The Mage and His Stolen Prince
“What do you expect Wilde to do? Keep our parents company? Kit will interrogate him the moment they think no one is watching, and I don’t want to find out who would win in a fight.”
If it was a sword fight, Kit had one serious advantage over me: knowing how to wield one.
Trey’s gaze raked over me from head to toe.
Why don’t you assess me with your hands?I swallowed the bold question, knowing it was too soon.
“Besides, if he’s going to join our quest, he might as well be there from the beginning,” Delilah said.
“We don’t even know if we’re going on a quest yet!”
The attendant dutifully ignored Delilah and Trey’s argument. Or perhaps they were listening intently so they could share the details of the royals and their strange guest with the other staff members.
The bickering continued until we arrived at Fitz’s residence. I stepped past the others, hand outstretched to open the door. A sword blocking my path startled me out of the unconscious habit. The guard narrowed his eyes and gestured with his head for me to back away.
Delilah watched me curiously, her head tilted to the side.
Trey’s eyes were narrowed as he looked between me and the door, a slight furrow in his brow.
I stepped back and lowered my hand, muttering something that could pass for an apology.
The attendant cleared their throat and stepped forward to pull on a bell rope to announce our arrival.
The door flung open, and Fitz beamed at us in excitement. “Welcome to House Fitz. You must be—” he trailed off as his gaze landed on me. “I’m sorry, have we met?”
“No,” I said, jerking my head to the side to avoid eye contact. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been on bended knee professing his love to a woman who didn’t exist.You seduced him!Delilah had claimed, and now embarrassment flooded me at the memories of our brieffriendship.
“This is Wilde, he’s a mage who is going to help us on our quest,” Delilah declared. “And I’m Delilah, and this is Trey.” She grabbed Fitz’s hand in both of hers and shook it in an exuberant greeting that sent his glasses sliding down his nose.
“Pleasure,” he said, his voice faint, as if she’d sucked all the air out of the room. After a few seconds, he straightened himself to his full height, onlyan inch or two shorter than Trey. “You’re the first to arrive, but I expect Angelica and Maximus will join us shortly. Willow, you should know the way—”
We both froze.
I started to raise my hand, fingers pressed together, but Delilah grabbed it and hissed, “Stop that.”
“I apologize,” Fitz said, shaking his head. “You remind me of … someone.”
“That seems to happen a lot, lately,” Trey drawled. His eyes never left my face. Any other time, I would have loved to have his full attention on me, but I wanted to gain histrust, not engender suspicion.
I glared at Delilah and tried to free my hand. “Let go.”
“Coward.”
Dammit, I am not letting the same insult influence me twice!But this wasn’t a problem I could solve by running away. If Fitz remembered me now, he would probably remember me even after time reset. Delilah had already proved that.
I relaxed, physically lowering my shoulders and unclenching my jaw. “Let go,” I repeated.
One by one, she pried her fingers away. She watched me the whole time, a cat daring a mouse to run so she could chase it.
Fitz looked between us and asked slowly, “Are they always like this?”
“I have no idea, I’ve barely known him for ten minutes,” Trey replied. It was a casual dismissal, like he didn’t care to know me any better than he did now.
The words burned a little hole in my heart, eroding my confidence in this plan. What if the quest changed nothing? What if, when we finally spent time together in this new world, he saw me as nothing more than his cousin’s friend; a stranger; an uninvited guest? What if the only world we could be together in was the one where he died? It was too soon to answer any of those questions. All I could do right now was keep my face blank as the thoughts raced through my head.
Fitz led the way to the sitting room. “Sit wherever you like. I’ll prepare some tea.”
I instinctively headed straight for the same chair I’d always sat in, then stopped a foot away from it. Had Fitz seen me? Did it spark another memory? Swiveling on my heel, I redirected and sat in the very center of the nearest couch.
