Page 101 of Sharpest Court

Keil shook his head, his voice tight as he ladled circles of batter into the pan. “To possess the Gallery’s protection alongside his own royal immunity would’ve made him politically untouchable.” Keil’s gaze flicked down, oddly avoidant, as though this subject was somehow sore. “He didn’t want that amount of power just because of his history with Rheya.”

I was watching him, trying to pinpoint the source of his discomfort, when he continued, “A few years after my mother died, my father grew ill. The physicians said he wouldn’t last the month, but Rheya scoured the empire until she located a medicine man working in the Coal Quarter. A refugee from Daradon, who utilized treatments other physicians scarcely touched . . . and called himself a healer.”

“Stian,” I whispered, something warm and proud blooming inside me. Stian’s craft for healing had been nurtured in Vereen.

As Keil’s mouth curved into a wistful smile, I realized this was the service Stian had rendered the empress. The reason he’d been invited into the Gallery.

“Stian was there for us through it all,” Keil said. “He encouraged us to pursue anything that kept us connected to our parents, even when it hurt. For Val, that meant drawing them. For me, that meant cooking. And whenever my sorrow overwhelmed me . . . Stian helped me breathe through the panic.”

That was why Keil had been able to calm me during my own flare of panic: because Stian had taught him how.

“Under Stian’s care,” Keil continued, “my father lived two years longer than he was meant to.”

An ache twisted my chest. What would I have given for two more years with my father? Two more years’ worth of drawings to fill up his sketch pads? Stian had given that time to Keil and Valeria. And more astonishingly . . . Rheya had been the one to fight for it.

Keil must have understood my silence because he grimaced. “Rheya isn’t perfect. But I’ve always known her to do the right thing for her empire.”

I thought of Finbar rebelling against the monarchy because of Rheya’s poor choice of counsel and asked gently, “Is Arun right for the empire?”

Keil considered, frowning slightly. “Arun lost his family in an Orrenish attack when he was young. He gained notoriety in the gambling houses, earning gold by rooting out lies, and Rheya believed she could better utilize his talent. But his grief . . . It sharpened him enough that Rheya has never offered him Gallery protection.”

But she’d offered it to me, not knowing that I had once been so sharpened by grief that I’d tried to kill Garret, the boy whose happiness used to be entwined with my own. I now regretted that moment, not just because he’d gone on to save my life, but because I’d let myself get lost in my anger when I should’ve instead directed it toward the people who’d hurt me the most.

“Since Rheya still hasn’t named a successor, Arun remains her second-in-command, and he’s used his position to gain her trust over the years.” Keil sighed. “I never thought she would give him so much power. But I believe in my father. I believe in the goodness of the woman he loved.”

I tilted my head, watching him flip the pancakes with successive little splats. The courtier I’d been in Daradon would’ve wanted to challenge his faith in others—to rattle his open mind until he yielded to reality.

But he’d recognized Carmen as a true sympathizer long before I’d reached the same conclusion. He’d trusted me enough to risk his life for mine in the ballroom, even on the heels of my threat.

So maybe Keil did have something to learn about the cruelty of the world . . . But maybe I had something to learn about its kindness.

Keil looked up, catching me staring. And slowly, the color rose in his cheeks.

I’d once found it satisfying to make him blush, but the sensation that crept over me now was the opposite of satisfaction. It was aching, desperate—an insatiability that left me breathless.

I’d been resisting the pull toward Keil, believing that Rheya had been right: Our connection would result in our mutual downfall, and the failure of this entire mission. Becoming intimate with someone—letting my guard down—was the most dangerous thing I could do during a time of battle.

Yet if Keil hadn’t been there when I’d encountered the roses last night . . . I would’ve compromised us all.

So what if the bond we’d formed wasn’t the weakness I’d convinced myself it was? What if, once my deal with Rheya was complete, we chose instead to give life to the flame we’d first sparked in Daradon?

My chest wrenched again, this time for a different reason. When the butter splattered, making us jump, I was glad to look away.

Keil plated the pancakes, drizzled them generously with lavender honey, and sat opposite me, waiting for me to take the first bite.

“Well?” he asked.

“They’re . . . exceptional.” Though we sometimes ate pancakes in Vereen, drenched in lemon juice and brown sugar, these were the best I’d tasted—decadently sweet with a cloud-fluff center, melting on my tongue. “You should cook for me more often.”

I’d meant it as a joke, but Keil smiled, content, and said, “As you like, my lady.”

I blinked, hearing it then—the way he’d said my lady. The way he must have been saying it for a while, though I hadn’t noticed until now.

It was the same way he’d said the word sweetheart back in the gambling den—with deep, intimate meaning.

As though he’d claimed my honorific as his own private term of endearment.

My heart thrummed as we ate, our feet nearly touching. I was distantly aware that this scene would look entirely improper to anyone who stumbled upon it—hazy and homely, with our hair slightly disheveled from the night’s events and my bare thigh grazing the cool underside of the counter.