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you mention it.”
    “I don’t think I did,” Lucas retorted. “And what were you doing poking about my house when I wasn’t there?”
    As if that was something new. It had nothing to do with Laurie’s prince-of-the-land-ness, and everything to do with his why-not-ness. He didn’t seem to understand the meaning of words like can’t or boundaries .
    “It isn’t a house.” Laurie sniffed then stood and patted at his thigh for Bramble to follow as he turned down the lane. “It’s a carriage house. People weren’t meant to live in it, and certainly not my favorite cousin.”
    They were if by people Laurie meant young men who desperately needed to live someplace other than down the hall from their mothers . But he probably didn’t.
    Laurie set off for Lucas’s little house, whipping a stick ahead for Bramble. Lucas and Alex just sort of followed along. Most people did.
    “Why is it I’m only your favorite cousin when you want something?” Lucas asked with a lift of an eyebrow.
    Laurie looked affronted. “Lucas! I’m wounded to the core! That you would even think I’d—”
    “Save it,” said Lucas. “You forget that I’ve actually met you.”
    Alex was still swiping at his lapels with Lucas’s handkerchief as they ambled along. “Why d’you even ask, Lucas? You know what he wants. It’s autumn, after all.”
    “Of course he knows,” Laurie agreed, dropping the indignant offense in favor of a smirk as he wrestled the stick from Bramble and threw it again. “He just doesn’t want to do it.”
    “No one in his right mind would want to do it,” Lucas put in.
    “Ah!” said Laurie with a grin that was far too bright. “Then you’d be—”
    “ Don’t say it,” Alex warned. He turned to Lucas. “You can’t just hand him straight lines like that.”
    “Oh, come on now,” Laurie said breezily as he shooed Bramble out of the way so he could open the door to Lucas’s carriage-house-cum-sanctuary. “You’ve very nearly built up a rapport with old Cráwa. He didn’t even try to crisp you last time. Aaaaaaaand, there’s the evil death glare.”
    Lucas had no doubt it looked somewhat evil; it felt pretty evil, pounding at the backs of his eyes the way it was doing. When Laurie’s head failed to explode in a messy shower of goo, Lucas turned the glare on Alex.
    “Right,” said Alex, grabbing hold of Laurie’s collar and pulling him back and away from Lucas’s front door. “C’mon, then, Majesty , why don’t we go and do the pretty with your auntie and leave Lucas to… uh….”
    “Focus on not killing the Queen’s only son with the fiery rage held within the power of my eyes,” Lucas said through his teeth.
    Alex reared back with a wary frown. “You do know you can’t actually kill someone with your eyes, right?” When Lucas only tightened his teeth, Alex cleared his throat. He nodded. “Right,” he said again. “Since I have no desire to test the theory on myself, we’ll just be going.” Laurie’s arms windmilled a bit as Alex dragged him out of the way and rather flung him inelegantly up the path toward the main house. “I’ll tell your mother you’ll want tea, then, shall I?”
    “I’m not presenting him to Cráwa again,” Lucas growled.
    “Of course you’re not, love.” Alex was making what he obviously thought were surreptitious shooing motions at Laurie behind his back. “You’ve already said ‘no’.”
    He very kindly—or very wisely—neglected to add that Lucas had said “no” every year, and every year, he somehow found himself making the trek up the winding stairs of the castle tower with Laurie, hopeful, on his heels. The fact that, for his own unfathomable reasons, Cráwa refused to accept the presentation and subsequent formal request from anyone other than “Addison Tripp’s youngest child” did nothing to assuage Lucas’s pissed-off-ed-ness about it.
    “He’d make a terrible student in the first place,” Lucas said, with a wave at the