24

Kai came to her first. He wasn’t supposed to. She should have been the one to go to his room an hour from now, according to the timecatcher hanging from the window in the sunlight. But for some reason, he was standing here and looking at her with a slow, lazy smile that almost made her close the door in his face in the compulsive need to escape from it. He was too much. She couldn’t do this. He was too early. She had needed the extra time to steel herself so she wouldn’t do idiotic things in his presence, but now he had stolen that from her.

“Anzi.”

She hated how he said her name. It made her bones shake and her eyes hot. “Yes, sir.”

“Come walk with me. I’m lonely.”

“Weren’t you with His Excellency and his advisors just now?”

“I was. But talk of business and trade doesn’t warm a man any.” He extended a hand to her across the threshold, palm up, and she dropped her gaze to it wit