She literally had no idea what he was talking about. Risa splashed him with water.
“Go!”
He muttered another swear word under his breath before makinga beeline out of the alcove. Risa waited a beat until she heard some kind of scuffle, then scrambled out of the bath, grabbing a thin towel Javi had left behind. Once sufficiently dried, she climbed into a pair of old, too-long trousers and a billowing shirt Paulo had apparently donated from his own collection.
She drained the tub, mentally berating her heart to calm itself. The situation was dire; she desperately needed toleave. She couldn’t breathe properly whether he was near or not, and she certainly wasn’t going to survive the rest of her days on meager scraps of air until he finally deigned to marry someone stupid enough to love him.
Oh, right. And she didn’t want him to die due to her curse.
Being selfless was harder than she thought.
Stomping out of the alcove, she found Javi sitting beside the princess on the bed, his knees knocking against hers. Something between a giggle and guffaw erupted out of Amina.
“Stop laughing at me!” the prince scolded, though he wore a strange smile Risa had never seen before. Soft and gentle, incongruous with the force with which he pulled Amina’s hood lower over her face.
Risa cleared her throat. Javi shot off the bed, refusing to look at her. Apparently, he could withstand kissing her, but almost seeing her nude was where he drew the line.
“What are you embarrassed about?” She placed her hands on her hips and glared. “I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of naked people.”
“That’s not thepoint,” Javi muttered, shooting Amina a glare for some reason.
The princess let out another giggle-guffaw and briefly pulled off her hood to adjust her hair. She shoved a stack of old clothes into his arms. “I guess it’s your turn for a bath,principito.”
“I am cursed with women who delight in my suffering,” he mumbled to himself, disappearing into the alcove.
Over a dinner of stewed meat and vegetables with rice—none of it exceedingly salty, thank goodness—Paulo and Amina caught up while Javi and Risa refused to speak to each other, let alone look at each other. After, the girls headed off to bed, Paulo handing Amina a clean linen sheet for the balmy night.
A candle lit Paulo’s small room in orange. Several shadows flickered in the corners and across the cracked wall plaster, casting the room in an ominous veil. The window shutters were open, allowing a cool breeze to waft through, and there was a faint drip in the alcove from what Risa assumed was a faulty tub faucet.
“You should get some sleep,” Amina said. “We leave for San Cirilo before dawn.”
The princess began to shed her layers, unperturbed by her audience. First her leather gloves, then her boots, until finally, she untied her cloak and flung it to a dark corner.
Risa watched from the foot of the bed, suspicious of the daggers strapped to Amina’s hips. Javi must have returned the one she’d loaned him.
Amina glanced at her. There was no way to tell what her face was expressing. Without her hood, her curse distorted her features enough that Risa couldn’t hazard a guess.
“Have you never had a sleepover before?”
Risa shuffled to the edge of the other side and took a seat, feet firmly planted on the floor. “No.”
She knew about them. The girls her age had made sure to alwaysannounce their shopping dates and sleepovers and parties whenever Risa was within earshot, to ensure that she knew just how uninvited she was. Once, when she was still young enough to tell her mother things, she considered admitting she’d heard about Emilia’s sleepover that night. But then she worried her mother might attempt to make her feel better by having their own. Or worse, have her mother say nothing at all and leave her alone anyway.
Javi could share his life story with all, and Amina might have been lulled into a false sense of camaraderie by the prince’s charm, but Risa had no intention of participating in the ill-advised ritual of sharing details about herself that didn’t need sharing.
She did, however, want to sleep. She unlaced her boots, shucked them off, and set them upright by her bedside. Paulo had spared a few oversized tunics for sleeping, though even after she changed into one she still felt exposed, tucking her legs beneath the hem until only the tops of her toes peeked out. She ran her fingers through the snarls in her still-damp waves in hopes of distracting herself.
Amina made a sound in the back of her throat that hinted of secondhand pain. “Stop,” she demanded, crawling over the bed until she knelt behind Risa, slapping at her fingers. “You’re makingmyscalp hurt.”
With a gentleness that belied her reputation for ruthlessness, Amina picked at the snarls with her own ungloved hands.
“I don’t need your help,” Risa said as she tried to move away.
“I’m aware,” Amina answered simply. “Though perhaps you should engage in asking for it occasionally.”
Risa remained silent and brooding, staring daggers at the book-strewn floor that hadn’t done a thing to deserve it.
“I used to do my sister’s hair,” Amina said after a few minutes ofuntangling Risa’s. Without the aid of her supposedly magical cloak, the princess’s accent was thicker, her voice on the verge of song. “She had hair much like yours.”