Charlotte reined in her horse and, when Regis did, too, she stared at him.

“How do you eat so little and have so much energy?” she asked. “We’ve been riding for hours.”

Regis could only shrug. They were riding south, on their way to the dukedom of Iles for a meeting she had with the King of Adife, which he knew was going to happen soon enough, but he suspected they’d get there at least a day early, if not two or three. His week would be up the next day.

Charlotte sighed deeply. “On the other hand, I can’t say that I envy you—you can’t even taste the dishes properly.” She started her horse walking again, and Regis followed, staying beside her at the front of the line. She’d asked him to, as she had to. Rank, she said, was sometimes far more strange than she’d ever understand.

“It isn’t even safe,” she’d said earlier, talking to Geo. “Any waiting assassins will see me first, if someone behind me happens to be a traitor I won’t have even a moment’s warning, and I can’t talk to anyone, either. Where did it come from?”

Geo had simply answered that it came from a safer time. Regis had tried to pretend he hadn’t overheard that, but Geo’s dark, calculating glance towards him probably meant he hadn’t hidden very well. It could also mean he’d hidden too well and Geo knew he’d been in earshot. As far as Regis could tell, Geo was suspicious of everyone for everything, including where they happened to be standing. It was subtle enough he hadn’t noticed it at first, but every day for the past week he’d been tailed everywhere he went, and sometimes when he was talking to Charlotte in the library he felt a touch of magic, like someone was checking up on them. He didn’t have almost any magic education, or the right magics to help him sense other magics easily, so he would not have been surprised to learn that he was always watched like a hawk and he just couldn’t tell. In fact, he found it quite possible that Geo was purposefully using more obvious magic workers as a subtle warning not to try anything.

“I hope you’ll have something to do aside from reading second-rate books,” she said to him, pulling him back from his thoughts.

“I haven’t finished Irene’s history,” Regis said.

“Really?” she asked. “You’ve been focusing that much on Nem’s irrigation system?”

“It’s important to her,” Regis said. “I don’t know when I’ll have access to such a comprehensive library again.”

“You could visit,” she said.

“I don’t know when I would,” he said, “much less how I’d get up the courage to step in.”

“Why?” she asked. “You know it’s free, and you won’t be afraid of meeting me now.”

Regis didn’t say that he’d definitely be afraid of meeting her. For all he’d tried, he hadn’t found anything to contradict his illusion. If anything the week had made it worse. It didn’t help that she was even more beautiful up close than far away.

Regis realized he hadn’t said anything for a moment, and there was a faint pinkness on her cheeks. Perhaps she caught the implication.

He quickly changed the subject to where he was in Irene’s history, and Charlotte’s eyes lit up again.

Once on a safe subject, they talked for a long time—until dark. They were almost to the estate. Then Geo came up and asked them not to talk, since her voice was one more thing that would give away she was there.

Regis noted that, and decided that either Geo was incredibly unreasonable and Charlotte simply liked him, or the royal family had somehow hidden, for however long, that there were attempts on their lives.

It was about then that it occurred to Regis that the assassins might have succeeded, at least with her mother.

The story since Charlotte was thirteen was that the queen was sick enough she couldn’t see anyone, but she could make the most important decisions, while leaving smaller ones to her half of-age daughter. He thought about how busy Charlotte was, how seriously she’d talked about morally grey decisions, and, most telling, how she talked about her mother.

I talk to her, but these days she doesn’t say much back. When she does . . . she doesn’t say anything new.

Regis’ father had taught him the basics of sword work, and his voice came to mind whenever Regis thought about those lessons. That was, in a way, his father talking to him.

Regis looked over at Charlotte, and realized that he was in love with a queen. She caught his expression and gave him a questioning look, but Regis only shook his head and looked forward.

They got through the gates of the estate safely, and Geo reluctantly said they could talk again, but only after Charlotte gave him a very pointed questioning look for almost three minutes.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Good,” she said, and turned to Regis. “Would you join me for breakfast tomorrow? Well, I suppose you will anyway, unless our host doesn’t want to give a formal breakfast for some reason. Still, if not, would you?” Her cheeks looked a touch darker in the moonlight, and he could say he’d never heard her talk with even a hint of awkwardness before.

“I would like that,” he said.

“Good,” she said, and they fell into an oddly awkward silence.

They got to the stables and separated when Geo insisted she let someone else take care of her horse. Regis was barely done brushing his horse down when he heard a familiar voice.

“You look exhausted.”

He spun to see Nem standing there, smiling.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in delight when he pulled back from hugging her.

“Waiting for you,” she said. “I heard the princess was arriving early. It’s kind of her, really, to end the week where you can get home more easily.”

“Oh,” he said, remembering, and he turned to his saddlebag. He’d brought the notes with him, because his box of things would take a little longer to get there, and he’d wanted to clean the notes up a little. “I had full access to the royal library, so I did some research for you.”

She took it, but didn’t open the carefully tied package. “Let’s get you inside first.”

Nem’s presence stayed all melancholy he might have felt at it being the night before he had to say goodbye.

“So,” she said when they were settled in the small room he had along with his bedroom, “has the illusion completely broken? Oh.” She’d recognized the look on his face. “It’s not an illusion.”

“How did I do that?” he asked. “More importantly, why?”

“You’re an observer,” Nem said. “I hoped not, but I wondered.”

“What do I do now?” he asked.

“You had the same question either way,” Nem said.

Regis stopped. “How did you know that?”

Nem gave him a disbelieving stare. “Because it’s obvious.”

“My options are narrowed now,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

“I can’t love anyone else,” he said. “She’d have to be more than perfect to chase Charlotte out. So that takes out an entire category.”

“Don’t give up on it forever,” she said.

“It wouldn’t be fair,” he said. “If you love someone enough to marry them they should have your whole heart. Not most of it, or half of it, or worst, only part of it. No girl deserves that.”

“You don’t know that you’ll love her forever,” Nem said.

“The illusion—no, not an illusion. The thought of her would chase me away from anyone else, even if I didn’t love her anymore. She’s amazing. Did you know, she snuck away from her guards to ride ahead of her party, to get to the flooding victims faster? It saved a little girl’s life. And she’s so strong.” He barely stopped short of telling Nem what he’d realized. “She talks about wanting a better work ethic but she works all day every day. Well, she has a few minutes here and there.”

“Is she as mischievous as you thought?” Nem asked. Regis smiled and was about to tell her about one of plenty of incidents, but Nem held up her hand.

“You’re right,” she said. “You’re more in love with her than ever.”

“So what do I do?” he asked. She took it as a rhetorical question. He knew she couldn’t give him his answer. “I can’t live off of you my entire life—”

“Actually, I’d welcome it,” Nem said.

“Living there and living off of you are two different things,” he said. “I’ve never thought about this. Not really. Not enough to even realize I’d have to.”

“I know,” she said. “Stop being frozen. You can calm down, and you have to if you want to get any sleep tonight.”

Regis made himself get up from his chair and shake out his arms. Whenever he thought about something too deeply, or was too worried about it, he tended to freeze up, sometimes tensing his muscles so he was pulled out of his thoughts by them cramping. “I suppose I have plenty of time to think it over, after tomorrow.”

“Exactly,” Nem said. “Now, you’re going to go back and get ready for bed, and then you’re going to come back out so I can hug you goodnight—and then you’re going to go to sleep.”

“I don’t think I can,” he said.

“Yes you can,” she said. “And this is how—are you listening to me?”

Regis knew what was coming, but he just nodded.

“You lie down, you close your eyes, and then you think of nothing. Absolutely nothing. Now off you go.”