“Always jumping to conclusions.” He chuckled and kissed me, and I obediently shut up. “I meant what it would be like to have you here all year. I have never had anyone spend that much time in the Underworld with me before.”
“I want to,” I whispered. “You’re my family now.” I expected him to kiss me again, but instead he pulled away. In the low light, I thought I saw him studying me, but my vision was bleary from sleep, and I couldn’t be sure.
“Do you still want to be my queen?”
“Of course,” I said, confused. “I thought that was implied with the whole being your wife thing.”
“You do not have to take on the duties of the Queen of the Underworld now if you feel you are not ready,” said Henry. “You are my wife no matter what role you play in the work I do.”
I didn’t answer right away. I couldn’t control the one power I had so far; whatever other ones came along with ruling the Underworld, there was no guarantee I would be able to control those, either. “Do you think I can do it?”
“Yes,” said Henry unequivocally. “You may not understand everything right away, but in time, I have no doubt you will be the best partner I could ask for. You have a rare gift—”
“Falling all over myself and screwing up every choice I make?” I said wryly, and he pressed his f inger to my lips.
“Not every choice,” he teased, and his expression grew somber. “I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.
You have the extraordinary ability to bring people together when they want nothing more than to walk away and never come back. You see the simplest solutions when we often see only the complications, and you have hope in the most impossible of situations. But most of all, you understand people. When you see someone, you do not see their ac-tions. Despite how you may feel about them, you see their motivations and have the compassion to understand them.
That is how I know you will be a great queen. Not even I have that self-control.”
I wasn’t so sure he was right about all of that, but the sincerity in his voice stopped my objections cold. It didn’t matter whether or not his vision of me was biased; what mattered was that he believed in me.
I traced an invisible pattern on the hollow of his collar-bone. The smartest thing to do would have been to wait.
Wait until the end of the war, until I could close my eyes and see anyplace or anyone I wanted, wait until I fully understood what it was like to live, let alone die; but as Henry watched me with those eyes the color of moonlight, shining in the dim light f loating above us, I knew my answer. I’d put my life on hold while waiting for my mother to die; I wasn’t going to wait anymore. I couldn’t dash Henry’s hopes just because I wasn’t one-hundred-percent sure I could do this. Henry was, and that meant more to me than I could ever express.
“Yes,” I said without a hint of uncertainty. “I want to be your queen, whenever you’re able to do the ceremony. As soon as I return, if you’d like.”
Henry took my hands in his, and a glowing yellow light appeared between them, ethereal and warm against my skin. “I do not see a reason to wait.”
My eyes widened, but I didn’t give myself the chance to second-guess it. This was what I wanted. I’d prepared for this since the moment Henry had found me at the river beside Ava’s dead body, and Henry was right. There was no reason to wait. “Neither do I.”
He smiled, and that was all I needed to know I was making the right choice. “As my wife, you have consented to take up the responsibilities of Queen of the Underworld,” he said, the same words he’d said exactly three months earlier. “You shall rule fairly and without bias over the souls of those who have departed the world above, and from autumnal equinox to spring of every year hence, you shall devote yourself to the task of guiding those who are lost and protecting all from harm beyond their eternal lives.” I held my breath, knowing what came next. “Do you, Kate Winters, accept the role of Queen of the Underworld, and do you agree to uphold the responsibilities and expectations of such?”
This time I didn’t hesitate. “Yes,” I whispered. “One-hundred-percent yes.”
The light between our hands disappeared, and for a moment we were pitched into darkness. Before I could so much as blink, however, every light in the room swelled to blinding brightness—between our hands, f loating above our bed, even the candles f lamed—and a great chime echoed through the bedroom. Through the palace. Through the entire Underworld, as far as I knew.
“My queen,” said Henry, kissing my knuckles. “I am honored.”
I blushed. “Is that it, then?” I said. “I’m—I’m queen?”
“I am certain the council will require a more formal ceremony, but you are my queen.” He cupped my chin and pressed his lips to mine, chastely at f irst, but as the seconds passed, the promise of more formed between us. “Now that you are awake, I must say that it would be a shame to waste this beautiful night simply by talking.”
“Are you suggesting we celebrate?” I said, and my eyebrows rose playfully. I thought being queen would feel different somehow, like something inside of me would have fundamentally changed, but I felt the same. I was still me, and with Henry beside me, that was all I needed to be.
“I am suggesting that this will be our last night together for a while,” he murmured, “and I would like to make the most of it.”