Page 80 of His Realm

“Although I will tell you, our little store does really well, and we put in an offer to buy the place next door.”

“You did?”

“If you agree,” she said, smiling up at me.

“Excuse me while I go put the pizza on,” Dae-Jung said, releasing her hand.

She gripped him tighter. “Thank you so much. I’ve been a bit frantic about all this, and just knowing there’s people here I can ask, like you, is so helpful.”

He patted her hand. “Perhaps when your time is close, midwives can be sent with Jason and all of us for the blessed birth.”

She turned to me. “You would come for the baby?”

“Of course I would come for the baby,” I snapped at her. “Though you didn’t even tell me about the baby, and I’m a bit upset about that.”

She gasped and then laughed, let go of Dae-Jung, got up, nearly fell because she was trying to move so fast, had Duro there to steady her before she scrambled around the couch to leap into my arms.

Grabbing her easily, I hugged her tight.

“I’m going to have a baby,” she said when I let her go, taking a step back to look up at me. “Jason, you’re going to be a godfather.”

I hugged her again as she asked Dae-Jung if the pizza was in the oven yet.

“I will cut up some fruit for you as the oven warms,” he said kindly.

“I don’t suppose you have any cheese or something to go with that.”

“I have many different kinds. Tell me which one you like.”

I loved watching her face light up.

After lunch, I showed her Varic’s treasures on the two floors above us, and afterward, we went for a walk, and I steered her to the bakery that Varic and I had ordered a small cake from. When Ode asked why so small, I only looked at her, and she laughed, realizing what she’d said. We bought several local pastries for her to try.

Once we were back, I walked her up to the roof gardens, and she enjoyed seeing the whole city.

“It’s like a dream being here,” she told me.

“Sometimes it is.”

We had one of our epic talks back in my quarters, her stretched out on one couch, me on the other, separated by only a coffee table. When she fell asleep, I covered her with a light blanket.

I got a call then from the bakery. There had been some kind of accident in their kitchen, and they asked if there was any way I could pick up the cake now, as it was finished but they had no place to keep it anymore.

“I’ll be right there,” I promised.

I texted Varic, told him what happened, told him to check on Ode, and then left our quarters through the back stairwell Tiago had shown me, which was cut inside the wall. I didn’t normally use it—the steps were short, steep, and worn down by age, which meant slippery—but I was in a hurry, and it was easier to leave via the secret back entrance than walking all the way to the front of the palace. Plus, I enjoyed the surprise on the faces of the king’s guards when I walked back in the front when they hadn’t seen me leave. Was it childish? Yes. Did I enjoy it as much as Tiago did? Yes again.

It was later than I thought it was once I was outside, and many of the side streets were already heavily shrouded in shade. When I reached the bakery and found it closed, only then did it hit me that I’d made a mistake.

I forgot—all the time—about my station. About who I was. Zev got on me constantly, and I gave him crap, but I vowed right then that I would stop. I would listen to him going forward. Pulling out my phone, I was suddenly bumped hard, thrown up against a wall, and my cell clattered to the cobblestones. A man was there, in front of me, and he stomped on the screen.

“The hell are you doing?” I yelled, and when he reached for me, I dodged, felt his hand on my arm and twisted free, then kicked him as hard as I could in the knee.

His scream was loud, and when I turned to run, I saw her then, and it was jolting. Carice, of all people, standing at the opposite end of the street, with Sorin beside her, pointing at me. Just for a moment, I thought I was back in my quarters in the palace with Ode, asleep. I had to be. What the hell was Carice doing with Sorin? It made no sense. I looked for her son, for Chryos, thinking he might be there as well, but remembered he was abroad with friends, in love with Fiji, and had been there since the summer. He liked Oceania as much as Cirillo. And of course, when I thought of the devil, he appeared.

“What are you doing out here?”

Turning, I found Cirillo using his tongue to touch each corner of his mouth. “What are you doing here?” I asked, frightened that he was in on whatever this was as well. Perhaps he and Chryos had met on some getaway and come up with some nefarious plot.