She squinted at him as she considered his offer. “First impression? I guess you would make for a good confidant since you forget my existence so easily. That was like the eighth time we’ve met, but I guess I do tend to blend into the background.”

Oh, she was wrong about that, but it wasn’t his place to correct her. He raised one shoulder, then dropped it. “Yes. I’ll probably forget everything as soon as we step off the plane. I’m careless like that.”

“I told Portia you were weird,” she said, scrunching her face as she regarded him.

“I hope Portia defended my honor,” he said, slightly hurt but also oddly pleased. She’d talked about him with her friends—why?

It doesn’t matter.

“Of course she did,” Nya said. “And I’m fine. I just have family problems, and returning home means I have to deal with them.”

Johan liked to wallow in how frustrating his family was, but none of them had tried to kill anyone or foment a coup, to his knowledge.

She shook her head, as if clearing away bad thoughts. “Are you excited for the wedding?”

“I’m excited for my friend’s future,” he said, taking her cue to change the subject. He understood complicated families and the aversion to speaking of them, if nothing else. “I don’t particularly enjoy weddings, but I think Thabiso’s will be good.”

Johan loved weddings, but he didn’t enjoy them. They were an emotional minefield, and not exactly the best place for a man invested in maintaining an air of aloof disinterest.

She looked at him, and her smile was genuine, though there were still creases of worry around her eyes.

“It will be great. I’m so happy for them, even though I’ve been selfishly focused on my own problems.” She pressed her hands together. “The goddess has truly blessed them. It is no small thing, two people coming together.”

The genuine warmth in her words was somehow transmitted physically to Johan. He felt it in his body, how deeply she cared for their mutual friends. This was just vicarious emotion; he wondered what it would be like to be the recipient of that care himself.

The plane’s descent began in earnest then, and she turned to secure the items on the table in front of her, breaking their eye contact.

Johan held on to his armrests, white knuckled, and not because of the altitude. For the duration of his time in Thesolo, he would stay away from her. He needed to avoid the warmth her kindness kindled in him. He needed to remember that even the brightest flames could be doused in an instant, and he would never be left alone in the darkness again if he could help it.

He turned toward his own window and stared down at the patchwork of green and brown.

Control.

He would only be in Thesolo for a few days. He could hardly get into much trouble in that time, anyway.

Chapter 3

ONE TRUE PRINCE, MESSAGE FROM: HANJO

Nya, are you there? I’ve got the blue blood blues, but getting to know you makes things a little better. I want to know everything about you, like . . . what are your thoughts on princes? Specifically: would you date one?

Nya’s stomach ached and her back hurt and her body felt heavy with fatigue—even floating in the royal spa’s oversized hot tub couldn’t rid her of the panic that had weighed her down since she’d stepped off of the plane.

Being back home made her feel awful, and feeling awful made the anxious thoughts cycle through her mind even faster.

Could she trust the things she ate and drank? Would someone else try to make her sick, or hurt her? What if her father had been right, and her constitution was just weak? What if her father managed to escape from prison, and she had to see him unprepared?

Everything will be fine.

She could feel Portia and Ledi staring at her from where they perched on the underwater benches around the hot tub’s perimeter, and their gazes were an additional weight. This was supposed to be a time for jubilant celebration, but her friends couldn’t have fun because they were worried about her. She’d thought she wanted people to worry over her well-being, but now she felt frustrated, like when her father had fawned over her in the name of keeping her safe.

Everything just felt weird and she didn’t know how to navigate being in a homeland that no longer felt like home.

When she’d arrived at the palace that morning, her grandparents had greeted her first, pulling her in for tight, bone-cracking hugs with their thin arms. They’d complimented her on her weight gain, with her grandfather going so far as to say that she was as fit as a prize heifer, and she’d felt that unfamiliar anger flare in her. Her grandparents had been the best part of her life, always, but she’d wanted to ask them why they hadn’t noticed when she’d looked like a gaunt, sickly heifer. Why they’d made her return to her father after visits with them, even when she had cried and begged to stay. Instead she’d kissed their soft cheeks and told them she’d missed them.

They’d hovered like polite, worried flies too afraid to land on the dung that was her father’s current situation. Then Ledi and Thabiso had appeared, also hovering, and then Portia had shown up and been the first to bluntly ask, “Are you okay? About your dad?” Portia’s fiancé, Tavish, had given her a quelling nudge with his elbow, and if Nya hadn’t already liked the Duke of Edinburgh she would have started to just then.