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"You scared the hell out of me."

"Below."

I just stared at him.

"Don't," I said.

"Sorry. Force of habit."

I crossed the kitchen and sat down beside him, careful of the ankle, careful of all of it. "You kept getting back up."

"You kept needing me to."

"No." I shook my head. "You kept choosing to."

That was the whole thing, wasn't it? Nobody had made him stand there and take it. Nobody could have. He'd chosen, over and over, on his own terms, and that mattered every bit as much as anything I'd chosen Below.

He looked past me, toward the crown sitting quietly on the table. "You chose it."

"Yeah."

Quiet, for a second. Just the two of us and the hum of the coffee maker. Yes, I was using my small, automatic drip machine because the thought of firing up that huge, gorgeous, fine, coppery piece of Italian espresso machinery just seemed like too much work—even for me, Marvelous Martha.

"I chose you, too."

"I know."

"That's the whole damn point." I looked down at my hands, at the coffee going lukewarm in the mug between them. "I spent four months thinking every step toward being Queen was a step away from the life I actually wanted. Away from you. Away from the wedding. Away from the shop. Away from myself."

I stopped, then made myself say the rest of it out loud, because I'd been carrying it around, silently, for too long. "I thought becoming her meant losing me."

Kai understood immediately, the way he always did. "And now?"

I looked at him. Really looked.

"Now, I think becoming Queen means I get to decide who she is."

He was quiet for a second, and then something in his face went soft in a way that undid me faster than any of the last twelve hours had managed.

"Crown or no crown," he said, "you're still the woman who threatened to set my firehouse on fire because I told you three coffees before breakfast might be excessive."

"You deserved it."

"Absolutely." His voice dropped, softer. "I don't need you to become anything for me, Love."

"Good." I set my mug down and moved closer, close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off him, close enough that everything else in the world got a whole lot quieter. "Because I'm keeping everything."

There was nothing ceremonial about the way Kai kissed me. No crown. No prophecy. No ancient instructions carved in stone somewhere waiting to be misread for centuries. Just the man I loved, proving with every touch that my life was still mine, that he was still there, that whatever the last four months had tried to take from us, they had failed... miserably.

I reached up and traced the bruise along his jaw, careful, like I could smooth it away by wanting it to happen badly enough. He caught my hand and pressed it flat against his chest instead, right over his heart. It was like he needed me to feel it beating as much as I needed to feel it.

His forehead dropped against mine. "I have you."

"You have me."

The kiss that followed started slow. Deep. More relief than hunger, at first—the kind of kiss that said I am still here, you are still here, this is still ours long before either of us said a word out loud. But we were still Martha and Kai, and relief only ever stayed patient for so long.

"Martha..."