Page 48 of Falling Princess

Imagining it or not, this stranger does not make me feel safe.

I broke into a run. He fell back, laughing. My heart pounded in my chest.

Outside the park, I exhaled in a cloud of steam. He was only a rude man trying to intimidate me into giving up personal information. I brought the situation on myself. I did strike him with a snowball, after all. Accidentally.

Which begs the question, why was he standing so still amongst the trees that I mistook him for one?

It wasn’t until I was hanging up my coat at Cata’s house, that I realized he didn’t have a Scottish accent.

CHAPTERFIFTEEN

Raina called me that afternoon, not long after I got back from my secret excursion. “When are you coming home?”

“I don’t know,” I hedged. But she’s my friend and she sounded low, not angry, so I relented. “I’m thinking about quitting school.”

Raina was quiet for a while. “You can’t do that.”

Oh, really? Watch me.

Why does everyone act like I owe Lorcan something?

“He’s sorry about overreacting,” she added.

I snorted. “News to me.”

“Would it help if he called to apologize in person?”

“Not really.” I picked a piece of lint from the blanket I was tucked under. I’m enjoying my respite. Thoroughly. Why would I want to talk to him?

“I gave Lorcan his wedding gift,” Raina said miserably.

“The knife?”

“It’s not just a knife; it’s an antique pearl-handled stiletto from Italy that was used by a famous Russian assassin during the nineteenth century. Exquisitely made. It cost a fortune, and probably belongs in a museum. It’s an heirloom. Which is the point.”

“I—okay.” What’s a twenty-year-old kid in a foreign country going to do with an expensive piece of sharp steel, other than get it confiscated by customs the first time he attempts to take it through airport security? “I’m sorry, Raina, I don’t understand.”

There was a long silence from the other end of the phone. “It’s. An. Heirloom. For passing down to your heirs. Which I had hoped to provide him with. A symbol of mutual protection, except that he didn’t give me—didn’t present me with one in return.”

I could hear the tears in her voice. Raina is so elegant, even when she cries. I wish I could cry like that. I wish I could cry at all. If I started, though, I’d probably never stop. No one wants a queen who can’t keep her shit together, and living goddesses don’t weep. My father’s been hammering that into me since I was ten years old.

“Ah. So, how did he react?” I should have said something before the holiday break to deter her. But how?

She heaved a sigh of pure heartbreak. “He thanked me and said he would keep it close in case he needed to use it, and he was honored to have it. All perfectly gracious.”

Use it…for what? Opening his mail?

What Raina said next ruined my otherwise mostly perfect day.

“I think he has a crush on you, Zosia.”

A cold shudder wracked me. My mouth fell open. “No. Raina, that’s impossible. I’m not evenpoliteto him.”

“I know. Imagine how he feels.”

“Utterly foolish, I hope.” It sounds mean even to my ears. I can’t get my head around the idea that my loathed knight protector might like me in spite of my months-long campaign to actively discourage any seed of friendship, much less anything more. Yet, there was the way he overreacted at the party—strangely possessive. I should at least consider the evidence before dismissing it out of hand. “Why? Why me, when you’re right there?”

“He doesn’t feel that way about me. He hasn’t said as much, but he’s been...distancing himself.”

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