Clark smiled at me, and from his expression, I could see that he was feeling pretty much the same way.

And then Clark was stepping out from behind his podium and walking toward me, and I was running toward him and into his arms, and Clark was picking me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist and we kissed, and it was like I was blocking out the commotion all around us, the people yelling and talking and laughing and trying to figure out what was happening, and the bookstore lady clapping her hands and trying to get control of the situation.

“Hi,” I murmured when we stopped to breathe and Clark set me down to the ground on legs that felt wobbly.

“Hi,” he said, running his hand over my hair and cupping my face in his hands. “I missed you.”

“Me too,” I whispered. I knew that this couldn’t last—that there were people waiting and he had things to do and this couldn’t go on forever. But in that moment it was like everything else faded away and there was only me and Clark and the possibility of us—whatever we might become—stretching forward in a hundred different directions, all of them unexpected, each one better than the last, the ending not yet written. And with this thought in mind, and Clark’s hands in my hair, I stretched up to kiss him once again.

Jack looked around at them—the five who would be accompanying him on this journey. “Are we met?” he asked, dreading the answer. These were the comrades-in-arms who would help him avenge his sister’s death and find the message he knew for certain Tamsin had left behind in the castle for him? This collection of rogues and misfits?

He looked at them one by one, realizing as he did that most of them weren’t even paying attention, despite the fact that he was (technically) now the king. There was Lord Thomas, who was sulking on a nearby stump, still in the player’s costume he’d been wearing when the king’s guards had pulled him out of the performance. “I had a matinee today,” he said petulantly, shaking his head. “I’ve been rehearsing for weeks. My accent’s finally perfect. But I suppose you don’t care about that?”

Next to him were the ladies Sabrine and Hannah, who were, as usual, laughing together at something the rest of them weren’t included in. He knew he needed them—Lady Sabrine was the best tracker he’d ever encountered, able to pick out the spot where a deer paused for a second and changed direction. And Lady Hannah had a way with horses that was unmatched. But that didn’t mean he wanted to feel like they were giggling about him behind his back, like they’d been doing since he was a boy of fifteen.

Leaning up against a tree, not paying attention to any of this, and certainly not the looks Lady Hannah was sending him, was Sir Wylen, who was, as usual, strumming the lute he seemed to carry with him everywhere.

“No,” a voice at his side said, dripping with disgust. He turned and saw Lady Andrea, who had insisted for the past week she was coming along, until he’d finally stopped arguing. “I’m not coming unless you get him to stop playing that thing. I cannot abide it. I’ll break it up myself and use it for kindling.”

Jack felt himself smile, and prayed he wasn’t blushing, or he knew he’d never hear the end of it from Sabrine and Hannah. But he couldn’t help it—he’d been in love with her from the moment he’d seen her, when she’d stormed into his court and demanded to know what idiot claimed to be running the kingdom.

Rather than risk her seeing him blush, Jack knelt down to rub the ears of Bernie, the huge dog that seemed to follow her everywhere and which he had a suspicion was actually part wolf. “I’ll leave that to you,” he said, backing away slightly when the dog bared inch-long fangs at him. “I think you can handle it.”

“We’re going to have to be careful,” Lady Sabrine said, as she stood and pulled Lady Hannah up, ignoring Wylen, who’d reached out his hand to help her. “I’ve heard rumors that the assassin Margery is unaccounted for. And for a prize such as you, my lord, I doubt she’d have to settle for the lowest bidder.”

“Who?” Wylen asked, frowning.

“I have an idea!” Thomas said, standing up as well and clapping his hands together. “What if we leave later tonight? Then I can get the evening performance in, and—”

“No,” Hannah and Sabrine said in unison.

“It’ll be dark soon,” Lady Andrea said, sheathing her dagger and taking a step toward the woods, dog at her heels. “We should get started.”

Jack took a breath, then let it out as he looked west, toward Haverhall, where they would journey. “Well, then,” he said, looking around at the assembled group. “Let’s begin.”

—C. B. McCallister, “The Coin of the Realm.” Hightower & Jax, New York.

Advance reader’s copy. Not for review or quotation.

Chapter TWENTY

I took a sip of my latte and looked across the table at Flask’s. I’d switched to hot lattes at the end of September, when it officially got too cold for iced drinks, and now that we were getting close to Halloween, the leaves outside the coffee shop window had all turned color and started to cover the ground. “How are you not done yet?” I asked, shaking my head.

Toby glanced up from where she was currently doctoring her caramel pumpkin latte with sugar packets and cinnamon sprinkles, as she had been doing for, I was pretty sure, the last twenty minutes.