House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City)

“She will be a good princess. As you are a good prince.”

“I’m starting to get disturbed by all this niceness.”

“Does it matter now?” Flynn asked. “I mean, no offense, but Danika’s gone.”

Bryce gave him a flat look. “Really? I had no idea.”

Flynn flipped her off, and the sprites ooohed at his shoulder.

Bryce rolled her eyes. Exactly what Flynn needed: his own flock of cheerleaders trailing him at all hours. She said to Flynn, “Hey, remember that time you set a dragon free and were dumb enough to think she’d follow your orders?”

“Hey, remember that time you wanted to marry me and wrote Lady Bryce Flynn in all your notebooks?”

Hunt choked.

Bryce countered with, “Hey, remember when you pestered me for years to hook up with you, but I have something called standards—”

“This is highly unusual behavior for royals,” Hypaxia observed.

“You have no idea,” Ruhn muttered, earning a smile from the queen.

And as Declan focused, Bryce said quietly to the wolf, “Did you know about Danika and Baxian?” His face had revealed nothing.

“Of course not,” Ithan said. “I thought she and Thorne …” He shook his head. “I have no idea what to make of it. I never once scented anything on her.”

“Me neither. Maybe she was able to hide it with her bloodhound gift somehow.” She cleared her throat. “It wouldn’t have mattered to me.”

“Really? It would have mattered to me,” Ithan countered. “To everyone. Not only is Baxian not a wolf, he’s …”

“An asshole,” Hunt supplied without looking up from his phone.