“Hopefully someone will direct the messenger to Alinath,” said Seraph, without looking away from the wall. She set a palm against it and said, “Once we convinced her you were alive when you left, she was most eager to hear if you’d stayed that way.”

She pushed away from the wall abruptly. When she turned toward him he thought she’d look at him at last, but her eyes caught on the floor and stayed there.

“We need to get you out of here,” she said in a low voice. “This place is a labyrinth, but Lehr found you, which was the difficult part. He’ll be able to backtrack on the way out.”

“I can’t leave, Seraph,” he said.

Her face came up at that.

“There’s a boy about Jes’s age who’s going to be hurt because of me if I can’t put a stop to it—and they’ve put some sort of hex on me anyway so I can’t wander around at will.”

She reached out to touch him for the first time since she’d appeared at his door. Gripping his hands lightly, she turned his hands over to look at his wrists.

“I can break this,” she said positively after a moment. “But it will take time—and will do us no good, since as long as this boy of yours is in danger you won’t leave anyway.”

He twisted his hands until he could grip hers. “Seraph,” he said. “It’s all right, now.”

Her hands shook in his but he could only see the top of her head. “I thought you were dead,” she said.

She looked up, and the empress was gone, lost in a face wild with emotion. Unexpectedly he felt the lick of her magic caress his palms.

“I can’t do that again,” she told him. “I can’t lose anyone I love again.”

“You love me?” He moved his hands to her shoulders and pulled her close. She leaned against him like a tired infant.

It was the first time she’d said that to him, though he knew that she loved him with the same fierceness that she loved her children. She had been trained to maintain control, and he knew that she was uncomfortable with the strength of the emotions she felt. Because he understood her, he’d never pushed her to tell him something that he’d known full well.

He knew it would make her angry but he had to tease her. “I had to get myself kidnapped by a bunch of stupid wizards and dragged halfway across the Empire to hear that? If I’d known that’s what it would take, I’d have gotten myself kidnapped twenty years ago.”

“It’s not funny,” she said, stomping on his foot in her effort to get away from him.

“No, it’s not,” he said, pulling her tighter. The ferocious joy of holding her when he’d been half-certain he’d never see her again kept him teasing her beyond prudence. “So why didn’t you tell me you loved me before? Twenty years didn’t give you enough time? Or did you only figure it out when you thought I was dead?”

“Oh, aye, if I’d have told you—you’d just have said the same back,” she said.

Her answer made no sense to him—except that she really didn’t find anything amusing in the situation. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so he tucked the laughter of her presence inside his heart and tried to understand what had upset her.

“If you had told me that you loved me,” he said carefully, “I’d have told you the same.”

“You wouldn’t have meant it,” she said firmly. “Haven’t you spent the last twenty years trying to make up for marrying me by being the perfect husband and father?”

Her words stung, so his were a little sharp in return. “I’d have meant it.”

“You married a woman you thought a child, married her so that you would not have to take over the bakery from Alinath and Bandor. You felt guilty.”

“Of course I did,” he agreed. “I told them we were married. I did it knowing that you were too young for marriage and that you would have to give up your magic and your people. I knew that you were frightened of rejoining the Travelers and having to take responsibility for so many lives again—but I knew that was where you felt you belonged and I kept you with me.”

“You did it to save yourself from being forced into the bakery,” Seraph said. “And that made you feel guilty. If I’d told you then that I loved you—you’d have said you loved me, too, because you wouldn’t hurt my feelings.”

Abruptly Tier understood. He pulled her back to him and laughed. He started to speak, but he had to laugh again first. “Seraph,” he said. “Seraph, I was never going to be a baker—even Alinath knew that. I wanted you. And I was extremely glad that circumstances forced you to turn to me. I don’t know that I loved you then—I just knew that I couldn’t let you get away from me.” He stepped back so he could look into her face. “I love you, Seraph.”

He watched, delighted, as tears filled her eyes and spilled over, then he kissed her.

“I was so afraid,” she said when she could talk. “I was so afraid that we’d be too late.” She sniffed. “Plague it, Tier, my nose is running. I don’t suppose you have something I can wipe it on?”

He pulled back and stripped off his overshirt and handed it to her.

“Tier,” she said, scandalized, “that is silk.”

“And we didn’t pay for it. Here, blow.”

She did. He wadded up the shirt and wiped her eyes with a clean spot. Then, the expression in his eyes holding her motionless, he tossed the shirt on the floor. He put a hand on either side of her face and kissed her, open-mouthed and hungry.

“I love you,” she whispered when he pulled his head away, breathing heavily.

He kissed the top of her head and hugged her close. “I know that,” he said. “I’ve always known that. Did you think that you could hide it by not saying the words? I love you, too—do you believe it now?”

Seraph started to answer him, but then remembered that he’d know if she lied. Did she really believe him when he said that he loved her?

Whatever he believed now, she knew she was right about the reasons he’d married her in the first place—he needed a reason to leave the bakery that would allow him to stay near enough so that he didn’t feel that he was running away from his family again. But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t attracted to her. It didn’t mean he couldn’t have grown to love her.

Yes, she believed him. She started to say so, but she’d waited too long.

“You know, for an intelligent woman,” he said, exasperated, “you can be remarkably stupid.” He threw up his hands and paced away from her. “All right, all right. Maybe if I married a woman and felt I’d taken advantage of her, if she asked me, I might tell her that I loved her. Maybe I wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings. You could be right about that. But why do you persist in believing that I couldn’t love you even if I felt guilty about marrying you so young? Is it impossible that I’ve lusted after you since you stood on the steps of that inn and defied the whole lot of grown men who’d just gotten finished killing your brother?”

She tried to hide her smile, but he saw it, and it only made him angrier.

So he did what he always did when she’d pushed past that air of pleasant affability he showed the world. He dragged her back against him and kissed her again. Hot and fierce he moved his lips on hers, forcing his tongue through before she could welcome him. The stone was cold on her shoulders as his hips settled heavily against her midriff and demonstrated quite admirably that, if nothing else, his lust was quite real.

“All right,” she said mildly, if a bit breathlessly, when he freed her mouth at last. “I believe you love me. Likely our sons and that poor woman you left with them believe you love me, too. Shall we go see?”

He laughed. “I missed you, Seraph.”