“But you pretended to be?”

  “Yes,” he said again. “So many people were trying to kill him, and we needed a way to get him safely to Sunderland. Aren’t you glad I came to you alive, Lady?”

  He would have put his arms around her once more, but Carys still evaded him. “He called you brother.”

  “Lady, I think you’re looking for reasons to push me away,” said Eurion, pouting once more. “We’re not brothers—it’s our way in Eppa to call each other as brothers if we’ve lived and nearly died together. We’ve studied and trained together all our lives.”

  “I see,” said Carys.

  “I believe Carys is not so concerned about that,” said the prince, with an understanding look toward Carys.

  “We have a need to talk,” she said abruptly. “If his highness can spare you?”

  “His highness had better spare me,” Eurion said. “Or I’ll have to run away.”

  “We’ll talk when you come back,” said the prince. “You’ve already died twice for me: I wouldn’t ask you to do it again.”

  “Let’s go outside, Lady,” said Eurion, stealing Carys’ hand and tugging her toward the door. “It’s not cold and there are too many people here.”

  She followed him silently, but when they were out in the cool of the night and seated on a wooden bench beneath the trees, she asked bluntly, “When did you remember?”

  “When I saw the picture of your husband,” said Eurion. “Well, I remembered that bit of it: I saw him just as he looked in the drawing, held in place by magic and seaweed to stop all the pieces of him falling apart, with that ring on his finger. I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d throw me out, and I thought if I could be with you just a little bit longer, you might not.”

  Carys smiled faintly. That was fair. She had been hard and unwilling to listen. “The rest of it?”

  “When the water foamed around us as we fell into the sea,” he said. “Then I remembered it all: the fight, the fall, the way the water swept me away. The prince thought I’d remembered earlier—it’s why he was always looking at me just so. He thought I’d gone back on my oath to him.”

  “What happened?”

  “There were three of us: the Prince, me, and Jessamy. I went as the prince while he pretended to be me, and we sent Jessamy by sea with Clovis and Yong Hwa to keep him safe as he pretended to be the prince, too. Just rumours and scents, that sort of thing.”

  “Too clever,” murmured Carys.

  “We had to be clever,” Eurion said seriously. “So many of the other half-Eppan heirs died going to Sunderland in the past. I couldn’t take the chance that my prince would die as well. We already looked quite similar, and Sunderman people don’t usually notice a lot of difference between us, anyway. We left the embassy in Eppa already disguised.”

  “You cut his hair to look like yours, grew out your own, and dyed Jessamy’s hair to match yours. Two possible princes to follow, and one captain of the guard who wouldn’t get a second glance.”

  “Yes. We’d been planning it for a while; it’s why my ears were never pierced. I had to carry my family earrings with me until I had a chance to wear them, and keep the seal on me. We arrived safely, but the elder prince separated us at the castle, high up on the seaward side. He said to hand over the seal or he’d kill me, but I knew he would kill me anyway, and there was more chance to save the seal for the prince if I took a chance on the sea. And even if I died, he would still be alive—so I jumped.”

  Carys closed her eyes briefly, repressing a shiver. He had been so close to death beneath the rocks on the shore; if it hadn’t been for the selkies who took him for a toy and brought him to her as a present, no doubt he wouldn’t have survived.

  “It was lucky, wasn’t it, Lady?” Somehow Eurion had his arm around her instead of just holding her hand. “I had a spell for breathing underwater, but I couldn’t control where the current took me, and as soon as it dashed me against the rocks where I saw your husband, I hit my head. I don’t remember anything after that until you were there looking down at me like an angel.”

  “It was the selkies,” Carys said, with just a little bitterness. “They gave you to me. They thought it amusing, no doubt.”

  “It’s not important, Lady,” said Eurion, his eyes rather anxiously on her face. “I want to talk about something else.”

  “I wasn’t speaking of my husband,” said Carys, to assuage that anxiety. “I meant that they wanted to play with you—to play with me. They’ll think nothing of taking you back when it suits them, as if you’re a toy boat. It’s why I wouldn’t have you on the shore.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me, Lady,” he said, smiling at her. “I have my spells.”

  “Much good they’ll do you if you hit your head again.”

  Eurion, ignoring that, tilted his head at her, eyes bright. “You came to me,” he said.

  “I came to warn you of the danger,” Carys said. “You know I love you: what else could I do? Leave you to die?”

  “You were already in the village,” Eurion protested. “Otherwise you couldn’t have heard to—Carys!”

  Shaken, Carys said, “Don’t look at me like that. Of course I love you—you said so yourself.”

  “Yes, but you didn’t say it!”

  “I didn’t say it because there’s no use in it,” Carys said quietly, though she was well aware that in saying it she was asking how it could be made possible. “Your place is with the prince. I can’t leave the shore.”

  “My service is coming to an end,” said Eurion. “It was promised. This was the last thing I was to do; we knew I was likely to die.”

  “If you come to the shore, you’re likely to die,” Carys said, brought up again against the other reason that it was ineligible to allow Eurion to remain. “If you stay in the village—”

  “I won’t promise not to help you; I can’t. I won’t be like your husband, Carys. I can swim, I have magic—I came through the sea and survived. If you’ll have me to come back, I can’t promise that. I’ll come with you to the shore every day: I won’t let you die.”

  “No. If I must permit you to die, you must permit the same in my case.”

  Eurion opened his mouth, then stopped ruefully. “That’s very fair and I hate it,” he said. “But why should I have to let you be imperilled alone on the shore?”

  “Because it’s my calling,” said Carys. “No one else can do it—not you, not one of the villagers. Until someone else comes to it, I must stay. As much as they permit anyone on the shore to live in safety, the selkies respect the guardians.”

  “Then I’ll make it safer for you,” Eurion said. “Breathing spells, catching spells—If I think about it, I’m pretty sure I can even come up with a spell to gather the seaweed. I’ve already been studying the magic in the sand and the energy of the water to find out how they interact and why they call someone when they do. No one is more useful to you than me; you have to accept me.”

  “Do I so?” asked Carys, but she was laughing: hopelessly, ridiculously, unreservedly. “Then I accept you.”

  Eurion’s face lit with delight, eyes aglow, and Carys couldn’t help herself; she cupped his face with both hands and kissed him, golden hair dancing in her peripheral and warmth at her lips. When she would have released him again, he wrapped his arms around her and tucked his face into her neck instead.

  Carys said softly into his ear, though she thought she said it for herself as well, “You must allow me to die, and I’ll do the same by you: we’ll love as long as we can.”

  “Neither of us will die,” said Eurion, raising his head, “because I am clever. Also you’re determined, and you can tell me all the things I need to know about the selkies so I can make useful spells.”

  “Very well,” said Carys, light of heart and very nearly frivolous. “Then we will speak with the prince.”

  “Can’t we speak with the prince afterward?” protested Eurion.

  “After what?”

  “Well,” Eurion said, pouting a little. “You were kissing me, and I thought we might keep doing that for a while first.”

  * * *

  “I do not excuse your service,” said the prince.

  Eurion coughed over his drink, then looked across Enfys’ table at the prince, alarmed. “What? But you said—”

  “I do not excuse your service,” said the prince, and Carys didn’t despair because she saw the laugh in his eyes, even if Eurion did not, “because I have need of it along the shore. Or at least, I will when I’m king. I told you that I want to ratify the guardians into some sort of evenness: you’re the first people to come back alive from the selkies. I want you to be working on that magic while I—”

  “Try not to die,” Enfys finished for him, rather grimly. She plumped down another piece of pie on the prince’ plate as if he was just another young thing come to eat supper at her house after the dance, and said, “Eat.”

  The prince grinned. “Exactly so. However, Ma Yong Hwa and his wife have promised me some help, and I’m expecting another…adjunct some time soon. When that person arrives, I’ll attempt the castle once again.”

  “Then I’m still in service,” said Eurion, looking slightly bewildered.

  “Yes,” said the prince. “Here. Working with the guardian of the shore.”

  “Oh!” said Eurion. “Yes! Then I accept!”

  “I would like you to work very closely with her.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Eurion said solemnly, but the look he shot at Carys was pure mischief.

  “In fact, it would probably be ideal if you married her,” added the prince. “Within the fortnight, preferably.”

  Carys stared at them. “A fortnight? How can we be married in a fortnight! What of Eurion’s family? What will they think of him marrying a woman of thirty years old?”

  “If you wed within a fortnight, I can marry you both,” explained the prince. “And Eurion is of an age with me.”

  “But my birthday is first,” interjected Eurion, grinning. “I’m twenty-two, Carys, so don’t think you’re going to wriggle away from me like that. Eight years is nothing—If I was eight years older than you, I wouldn’t hold it against you!”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And I haven’t got any family,” he said, ducking his head to place a kiss in the palm of her hand as he smiled up at her. “Just you.”

  “It’ll be a proper village wedding this time,” said Enfys. “At my age, I’m not hobbling down to the beach to attend another downright odd marriage: my bones will seize up.”

  “Your old bones are well enough to take you down to the cove every few days to look for pearls,” Carys said dryly. “By the long path, I might add. But we’ll be married here, if Eurion pleases.”

  “I am very pleased,” said Eurion. “But for the ceremony, you have to carry your seaweed hook and catch me around the neck so that—ow! Lady! Is that any way to treat your fiancé? Ow! Lady, I’ll demand a kiss for every bruise, I warn you!”

  Bonus Chapter: SPINDLE, Two Monarchies Sequence, Book One

  Polyhymnia knew perfectly well that she was dreaming. Her hair was in pigtails and she was wearing a smock, suggesting a dream age of perhaps twelve or thirteen. The dream itself was a distant memory of a history lesson with Lady Cimone, her teacher. She had been amused for a brief moment to find herself daydreaming during the lesson: dreaming, as it were, during a dream, while Lady Cimone pointed out the various flaws in Civet’s latest sally against Parras.

  Oh, I remember this, thought Poly suddenly. Parras tossed over one of our outposts, and we walked right into an ambush trying to retaliate.

  Pain, in her left ear. Poly clutched the injured member in surprise. “Ow!” She hadn’t remembered that.

  “Perhaps you could pay attention to your lesson, now that you’re awake?” suggested Lady Cimone. She always did prefer boxing ears to using a cane. Maybe it was her idea of the personal touch. “This is important, Poly.”

  Poly let her younger dream-self murmur the appropriate response, her attention snatched away, because a gold edged rift was beginning to form in the blue wall behind Lady Cimone.

  The lady caught the direction of her gaze and gave a sharp glance behind her. “Bother!” she said. She seemed annoyed rather than taken aback.

  Before long the perpendicular rift was tall enough to admit a human, and Poly wasn’t quite surprised when a young man stepped through. He was wearing a long, mud splattered black coat that looked as though it had seen one too many days travelling, and he had an inquiring, dishevelled look. His forehead was wide and square, with dark hair springing upwards and sideways from it, and his mouth was both determined and wistful; though the triangular set of his chin spoke more to determination than wistfulness. Poly shut her mouth, which had dropped open, and took one involuntary step backwards as the man edged carefully into the room. He was glowing with residual magic, sparking a plethora of alarm bells in Poly’s head.

  He stepped purposefully toward Poly and said: “Shoo,” at Lady Cimone.

  The Lady smiled a little grimly and said: “I am no more a dream than you are, young man. Kindly be polite.”

  Poly became her normal, older self in confusion, and the dream-memory of the younger her melted away, leaving Lady Cimone and the young man behind in the resulting void. The young man seemed almost as bemused as Poly felt, but Lady Cimone was looking, as usual, serene and omniscient.

  “I tried my best, but I’m afraid he got you,” she said to Poly. “You’ll have to go with the wizard for now. Your parents said they’d try to find you somewhere along the way, but things might be a little more difficult than they expected. Try not to forget everything the minute you wake up, child.”

  “But—” Poly began; but Lady Cimone was already gone. Poly put her hands on her hips and surveyed the young wizard, who was still standing where he was, disturbingly real for a dream figure.

  “Huh,” he said. “Didn’t expect that. Come here, princess.”

  Poly could have said: ‘I’m not the princess’, but it didn’t seem worth arguing with a dream. Instead, she said: “I don’t think so,” and slipped up and out of the dream.

  It should have woken her. For a moment, she thought it had. She was standing in her own small, rounded chamber, stranded aimlessly between her bookcases. Through her window-slit the outside world looked sunny and normal. Then she saw the translucent something coating her hands from fingers to elbow, and belatedly felt the odd, sideways pull that had brought her here.

  “Bother,” she said aloud. The translucent something wasn’t quite magic, but it seemed to be the dream equivalent. In real life, Poly had no magic. It was the one consistent way to tell dream from reality when her dreams became too realistic.

  Poly wriggled her fingers and the translucency shivered coolly across them with a sense of familiarity. When had she started dreaming about magic so often? In fact, when had she started dreaming for so long at a time? She felt as though she’d been dreaming for years.

  Time to wake up, Poly decided. She let herself slip upwards and awake, and again found herself sliding sideways to the pull of something strong and unfamiliar.

  Someone said: “No you don’t, darling. Back to sleep with you.”

  Poly gave a little gasp of indignation and fought against the pull. It was ridiculous to allow her dreams to be hijacked by an unpleasant dream entity of her own creation. Where was it coming from?

  She dragged herself around, seeking the owner of the voice, and felt the reality of her dream-chamber wobble around her. A nasty quiver of surprise shook her at the sight of the hooded, murky figure that was cobwebbed in the doorway, more shadow than substance.

  To give herself time to become brave, Poly said: “Now, what are you? I know I didn’t dream you up.”

  “You must have,” said the hooded figure, its voice soft and amused. “Here I am.”

  Too smooth for words, Poly thought, sharp with fear. There was a prickle at her back that made her think the wizard from the previous level was making his way through to her again. A panicked, nightmare quality had settled over the dream like a wet blanket, weighing her down, and for a brief moment Poly found herself unable to think.

  The same soft voice said: “Darling, you’re being difficult. There’s no need for things to become uncivilized. Be a good girl and go back to sleep.”

  “I don’t like you,” Poly said experimentally.

  “That’s hurtful, darling,” said the voice reproachfully. “As it happens, I’m really quite fond of you. However, needs must, and you really must go to sleep.”

  The reasonable tone to the shadow’s voice was hard to resist. Her bed was somehow in the middle of the tower room where it didn’t belong, and Poly felt herself take one step toward it.

  The sheets should have been cool and smooth when she slid between them. Instead, they were fuzzy and warm, and Poly felt her eyes gum together in the last warning of approaching slumber, the prickle at her back fading in the warmth.

  “Huh,” said a second voice. “This is all very interesting. Who are you? No. Not who. What?”

  “Undefined element,” said the hooded shadow thoughtfully. Poly could vaguely see it through her gummy eyes, outlined in the brilliant gold of the wizard’s magic. “You are not valid here. Retreat or assimilate.”

  “Tosh,” said the wizard mildly. “You’re what? A remnant? Go away.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” said the shadow.

  It seemed to Poly, mired in sleep, that an impossibly strong magic was stirring in the room—no, in the very air—around her. It was bright, fiery, and entirely translucent. The wizard said: “Yow!” and did something golden and magical with more haste than precision. Poly stirred, fighting against sleep, and saw his face briefly appear above her. He said: “Well, better get on with it, then.”

  Poly tried to say: ‘Get on with what?’ but found that she couldn’t move her lips. It took her a shocked moment to realise that she couldn’t move her lips because she was being kissed. It took another to realise that she was waking up—really waking up. Gold magic fizzed from her lips to her toes, and everything familiar…disappeared.’