They walked out into the darkening afternoon, the low heels of her boots clicking on the cobblestones. The castle was on the highest level of the tiered capital city, with the old towne spreading out below like a quilt of quaint old European houses.

“It’s not so different from Lek Hemane, but looks like something from a movie,” Nya said. “Like small, furry creatures should live in these houses.”

“I’m sure furry creatures live in at least some of the houses,” he said drily, and tried not to sigh when she laughed and tightened her hold on his arm.

“What was it like growing up here?” she asked as they turned onto the main street, full of people heading home from work or school. He’d tucked his telltale red hair up into a blue knit hat, but still drew gazes. Some people stared and a few of them suddenly had urgent business to take care of on their phones—which were conveniently pointed in Johan and Nya’s direction—but no one approached them.

He wondered if he shouldn’t have gotten them a security escort. Photos were fine, but what if someone tried something? He rarely used one when he was alone, but he wasn’t alone anymore. Not for the next few days at least. And if anything happened to Nya . . . his scalp suddenly pricked with sweat, despite the cold and he stood taller, gazing around at the crowd for possible threats. Liechtienbourg was one of the safest countries in Europe, and had been for ages, but he still held Nya closer to him.

“Growing up here? It was okay,” he said, leaning forward to peer around a parked van. “I wandered around this area alone a lot while Mamm was working for Linus.”

“I bet you got into a lot of trouble back then,” she said, grinning up at him, clearly trying to lift his mood. He could have spun her a tale of himself as a mischievous, free-spirited scamp, but that would’ve been a lie.

“No. I was a quiet child. I spent all my time reading. Lots of it in here.” He jutted his chin toward the compact medieval building they were passing. “Sommetstaad Library. I didn’t have many friends. Or I guess I did, if you counted the books.”

He’d tried to make friends outside of the pages, but young boys could be cruel to one another. Once they’d learned how easy it was to make Johan cry, it’d become their hobby. The friends he’d had slowly drifted away, not wanting to be targeted. Johan had told no one, not even his mother. He hadn’t wanted to worry her, and eventually he’d decided she was the only friend he needed.

He waited for Nya to say how hard that was to believe, to brush off his childhood woes because it had all turned out fine for him now that he was a strapping playboy.

“I can imagine that,” she said quietly. “Little Phoko with his big pile of books. There’s a solitude beneath all of . . . this.” She waved her hand around to encompass his body. “You are shy, I think.”

Johan scoffed. “Hardly. We can stop by the newsstand and the tabloids will tell you otherwise.”

“But that’s not you. I’ve read all about this Prince Jo-Jo.” She looked up at him, somehow both timid and defiant. “I told you that I liked you. Well, I have for some time. I would read about you in the papers and on the blogs, and imagine you as a wild bachelor, with no worries, free to do whatever his heart desired. And I wished I could live like that. But—I watched you, when you came to visit Thabiso, too.”

Johan’s throat went tight as they approached the esplanade that looked out over the lower levels of Sommetstaad and out toward the rural towns.

“You watched me,” he said.

“Yes.”

I watched you, too.

He didn’t tell her, though. Simply kept walking. It was bad enough that she felt anything for him. If she knew that like was not enough to describe what she meant to him, his reputation would be forever ruined.

Johan wanted to be ruined by her. He wanted to know how it felt to stop pretending, to stop guarding his emotions like a dragon watching over its hoard. But treasures were guarded for a reason—the world took and took, and he wouldn’t gain something so precious as Nya only to lose her.

“What did you see?” he asked. “When you watched.”

“It was hard to see you sometimes. You’re kind of like the sun, you know.” She laughed and shook her head.

“Red, fiery, et gaseous?” he drawled.

“No. Incredibly hot.” She reached up to tap her gloved finger against the tip of his nose, and Johan’s face mottled with heat. “You made me sweat and feel dizzy if I was in your presence for too long.”

“Hmm.” Johan’s heart was beating fast. “You might want to get that looked at.”

She rolled her eyes.

“But sometimes, when everyone else was talking, you would look so happy to be there. You looked how I felt, now that I think about it, so pleased for these friends when I’d never had them before. So maybe I should’ve known we were the same in this way. I was a lonely child, too. And I was a lonely adult. Naledi was the first person who made me feel not lonely.”

“But you only met her two years ago,” he said before he could stop himself. “Were you lonely all that time?”

“I had my father,” she said softly. “And he told me that I should be happy to have him, since I’d taken my mother from him. He told me I must stay home, like a good girl at first, and then like a good woman—like my mother was. Because if I left I would have taken everything from him.”