Donovan saw my trouble and took the lantern. He held it up, scattering light around us. “The trail is this way.”
He started in that direction and I stumbled after him, arms still wrapped around my torso. “Thank you,” I muttered. With my teeth chattering it sounded more like, “Haiku.”
I considered repeating the phrase, but my teeth kept chattering, so I decided to let him think I had a sudden interest in poetry.
Donovan paused and held the lamp closer to my face. “I think you’re getting hypothermia. You don’t look good.”
I didn’t look good? I was soaking wet and dotted with seaweed. “No one looksh good afer being dunked in a la-ake.”
His gaze went over me, concerned. “Shivering, pale skin, slurring your words. Next is mental confusion. We’d better find a place to start a fire.”
I watched the water dripping from his clothes and wondered how he planned to do that. “You got waterpoof ma-atches?”
“Nope. So it’s a good thing we have a lantern. Let’s get out of the wind.”
Right. The lantern. The lantern used fire, not electricity. Maybe I really was getting hypothermia. I couldn’t think straight anymore. I felt as though my bones had frozen.
As we walked through the forest, Donovan gathered dried twigs and branches that littered the path. He carried them in his cloak, adding to the pile as we went. He also surveyed the forest floor searching for dead branches. Every once in a while owls let out a warning hoot from somewhere in the forest, warning us not to go near the magic trees.
I gathered dry branches too. The bark and knobby ends bit into my skin, but I didn’t care. All I could think about was a fire and warmth.
When we had enough wood, Donovan arranged the kindling in the middle of the path. He lit a twig, and then ignited bits of the pile. I sat and watched him, shivering so badly I was shuddering. Little flames leapt on the tinder, tiny specks against the vast dark forest around us. The heat was just a whisper, a promise. I would have given anything right then for a hot shower or an electric blanket, but no, I couldn’t have those things because I’d used magic to wish for a better life. And now I was a princess. Suddenly the whole situation seemed so ridiculous that I started laughing.
Donovan lifted his gaze from the fire. “Why are you laughing?”
“On my eighth birthday,” I said through still chattering teeth, “I had a princess party. Now that I’m actually a princess, I realize Mom got the decorations all wrong. Our house looked nothing like this.”
Flames kept jumping through the kindling, flickering light into the night. Donovan nodded and put one of the larger chunks of wood on the fire. “Yep. You’ve got hypothermia.”
“You never see paper plates depicting drenched princesses in their underwear.”
Donovan sat beside me and put his arm around my shoulders. At first I only felt the chill from his clothes, then the warmth of his skin replaced the cold. I leaned into him.
My teeth kept knocking against each other. “You never see princess balloons with dark foreboding forests in the background.”
“You’ll be fine as soon as you warm up.”
“And if anyone ever tells me they want a fairy tale life, I’m going to laugh.”
“People say stupid things.”
“Being a princess totally sucks.”
Donovan wrapped both arms around me, held me tighter. “You’ll be okay in a few minutes, Tiara Girl.”
I didn’t say anything else for a while. The heat from the fire had grown, and I tried to soak it in, to hold it inside of me. I wanted it to hurry, to melt my icy bones. Slowly, my shivering subsided. I thought of Donovan having to swim all the way to the fairy ball. He must have been so cold. Pushing him into the lake was such a mean thing to have done, especially since he’d kept me from falling off the stairs earlier.
“I’m sorry I pushed you off the boat,” I mumbled into his shoulder.
“Yeah, I bet you’ll think twice about shoving the next guy over if you’re wearing half a ton of fabric.”
“I meant I’m sorry for both times.”
“Ah, you’re still delirious.” Donovan didn’t let go of me, and I didn’t move away from him. It was nice sitting with him like this, nice that he wanted to work with me instead of against me. Nice that he was hot—I mean, warm. It was nice to have the warmth of him next to me. And, okay, the hotness thing was nice too.
Wisps of smoke blew toward us. I didn’t mind. It reminded me of a camping trip my family had taken once. We’d toasted marshmallows over a fire. Mine were soft, gooey, and tasted of smoke and happiness.
“How come I got hypothermia and you didn’t?”
I felt him shrug. “You spent your energy keeping from drowning. When you’re exhausted, you can’t fight the cold.”
“Oh.”
“And besides, I’m used to the cold. That’s what happens when the city keeps turning off your electricity.”
I lifted my head to check his expression. He was serious. “Really?”
Another shrug. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I learned how to take care of myself early on. That’s a good thing.”
It didn’t seem like a good thing. I laid my head back against his chest. “Don’t your parents have jobs?”
“My dad took off when I was twelve. Haven’t heard from him since.”
“I’m sorry.” He’d just told me not to say that, and I chided myself for saying it. “What about your mom?
“It’s hard to hold down a job when you spend most of your time drinking.”
My heart broke a little for him then. I didn’t see my parents a lot, but at least I knew they cared about me. They would never drink away their money instead of paying the electric bill. And if they ever couldn’t take care of me, my grandparents would have. “Isn’t there anyone else in your family?”
“Yeah. My brother, Shane. He’s fourteen.”
Fourteen. Not old enough to help. “You take care of him?” I knew it was the truth even as I asked the question. “That’s why you need to get home.”
Donovan didn’t answer right away. When he spoke his voice was low, asking me to understand. “I didn’t start a life of crime for the thrill of it. When you’re a kid, you don’t have a lot of options when it comes to paying the bills.”
“Sorry,” I said, once again ignoring his instructions not to be. How could I not feel sorry? He’d had such a difficult life. And I’d pushed him into a cold lake. Twice. I gave his hand a squeeze. “We’ll get back. And if your probation officer is angry, I’ll vouch for your story.”
He didn’t let go of my hand. “My story that I was detained by fairies?”
“We can come up with something better. My Pinocchio thing ends as soon as I’m done with fairies.” And a good thing too. I had no idea what I’d tell my parents about all of this. If I told them any sort of story that involved magic, they would think I’d had a nervous breakdown.
Donovan squeezed my hand back, keeping it loosely twined with his. His gaze went over me, soft and considering. Weighing me somehow.
Then he dropped my hand and moved away to pick up one of the dead branches in our wood pile. I had no idea what he’d been weighing, or what decision he’d come to. Which bothered me. I should have asked Chrissy for mind reading.
Donovan tossed the branch onto the fire. The yellow and orange flames licked the sides of the wood, making it crackle. He leaned back, his tone business-like. “We need to talk about the goblet. You can’t just take it like you tried tonight. Queen Orlaith will notice it’s missing and search everyone. She’ll catch you. This is what you need to do instead: in the morning, go to the castle goldsmith and give him our drawings of the goblet. Order him to make a duplicate. You can tell him it’s a surprise gift for the king.”
I shivered and Donovan put his arm back around my shoulders. I laid my head against his chest. I liked the feel of it against my cheek. Strong. Warm.