The afternoon spun long with Elphaba's thoughts in such turmoil. When Fiyero caught her eyes, she couldn't help the broad smile that stole over her face, or how his grin echoed hers back. The others didn't react to their strange behavior, and she clung to the pathetic hope that she might be imagining it all.

"May I escort you to dinner?" Aruc provided an arm, but Elphaba snorted.

"Asking now, are we?"

"I'm attempting to be more gentlemanly, lest I send you running off to Fiyero for protection."

She colored at Fiyero's name, and it worsened when he looked over at them. "If I accept your escort, I fear it will only encourage you."

"Indeed."

"Then I shan't. You hardly need further encouragement."

"You'd abandon me to pine for you when you might save me with a single word?"

"You needn't pine for me at all."

Aruc fingered her hair where it swirled around her arms. "You're more bewitching each time I see you. How can I resist?"

"It is your own self control to blame, not me."

"Enough," Fiyero interrupted with a laugh. "We've already arrived, so I believe the point to be somewhat moot."

As Fiyero sat Nessa with his usual grace, Aruc held the chair beside her out with a smooth smile. He bent toward Elphaba in a half-bow. She wrinkled her nose at the thought of a dinner full of Aruc's continuous flirting and flung herself into Fiyero's seat before he could occupy it himself.

Fiyero raised an eyebrow, and she flashed a cheeky grin. "Is that the path you've chosen?" He leaned over her, his hands wrapped around her chair to tease her upper arms. "Steal my seat again, and I'll make you sit in my lap."

"How rude!"

"Says the one in my chair." He sat beside her, and she busied herself with Nessa to avoid his eyes burning into the side of her face.

She'd fed her sister the last bite of her first course when his hand crept on her lap to steal her napkin. Shocked, Elphaba dropped her fork with a clatter. A dozen eyes jerked toward her, and she mumbled a quiet apology.

Fiyero chuckled and showily dabbed his mouth with her napkin. "You brute!" she hissed. "You stole my napkin."

"Oh, I thought stealing was in vogue today?"

"Give it back."

"Fair trade for my chair." She snatched back her napkin, but he pinned her wrist. "I think you've stolen enough from me for one night."

"It's my napkin."

"Which repays my chair. But as I have a spare, I might be persuaded to part with it…for a price."

"What price?"

"Let me brush your hair again tomorrow." He released her wrist to catch a loose strand and twist it between his fingers.

"Why that?"

He stared at her deeply. When he spoke, the darkness in his tone made her shiver, "Because I'd like to. Very much."

Her mouth dry, she nodded.

"I believed you dropped this," he spoke loud enough to be heard with a sly grin.

"Thank you." Her smile hid clenched teeth, and he winked.

Dinner held little interest for her with the memory of his hand in her lap resurfacing every few moments. She couldn't understand her idiotic behavior. This was Fiyero, engaged to her sister and intolerable to her for that fact. Her imagination replaced Nessa with herself, and she snapped her bread down with some force.

Fiyero leaned to whisper, "Is your bread now the enemy?"

"What interest have you in my bread? Or do you plan to steal that also?"

He chuckled. "Still cross about your napkin? I will choose my jests with more care next time."

"There shouldn't be a next time." She scowled. "Or do you seek to make Aruc more palatable to me by being so obnoxious yourself?"

He blinked and pulled back. "I was unaware I should factor at all in comparison with your potential suitor."

"You don't. Nor is he any suitor of mine, whatever he might think."

"Why are you so angry?"

"You pilfer my napkin, and ask why I'm angry?"

He leaned forward, annoyed. "You have it back, don't you? Unlike my chair."

"So you may be cross about a chair, but I mayn't about a napkin?"

"Fine, be cross. Oz knows you'll find reason despite what I say." He sighed. "I don't understand. You started the thefts."

"No, you did," she snarled. "You're stealing my sister." She pushed her chair back and stood to address the room. "If you'll pardon me, I'm not feeling well." She waved off Nessa's concern. "I just need to lie down."

Fiyero stood as well. "I'll escort you."

"I don't need an escort," she bit out. "I'm perfectly capable of seeing to myself."

The queen's voice wafted, "No, my son is quite right. If you are ill, you should be cared for."

She bit her lip in frustration as she searched for an out. "Then Master Aruc can escort me."

Aruc's eyebrows rose, but he stood. "Of course, Miss Elphaba."

Fiyero caught her elbow. "No need. I'll see to her."

She jerked away and strode to Aruc with Fiyero on her heels. Aruc glanced from her to the prince and back in confusion, but when she linked her arm with his, he took a step away from the table. Fiyero grabbed for her again, and she dodged him, flattening herself against Aruc's side.

"Son?"

Fiyero turned to face the king and remembered himself, sitting with red cheeks in her neglected chair. She dragged her escort toward the door, and paused beside Fiyero to whisper, "There. You have your precious chair back."

"We will discuss this," he seethed. "You can't hide forever."

Aruc led her from the dining room with his brow furrowed. When they'd turned the corner, he asked, "What was that about?"

"Nothing," she waved him off. "Thank you for escorting me."

He wrapped a supportive arm around her waist. "My pleasure. Not that I'm pleased you're sick…"

She nodded, and he ducked his head. "I hate to steal you from your dinner. I'll be fine on my own, if you'd like-"

"It's no imposition. I want to take care of you."

She forced a smile, wearied by his sincerity. As they walked, his constant attentiveness left her with a growing headache. How could she dissuade him if he refused to listen? They reached the door to her family's suite, and she almost sighed in relief. "Thank you again."

"Not at all. You're certain you'll be alright?"

"Of course. It's just a little headache."

He pressed a hand to her forehead, and when convinced she had no fever, he released her. "Will I see you tomorrow morning? No racing, I promise."

She wrinkled her nose. "I suppose." He wished her a goodnight with a kiss to her hand and started down the hallway. "Aruc?"

"Yes?" He returned to her side in an instant.

"Please don't expect anything to happen between us. You are a kind man, but I am not interested in any romantic relationship."

"Now."

She shook her head. "Ever."

"So you say now." Oz, she wanted to shake that infernal grin off his face. "But look at the progress I've made in a day."

"I will never be interested. How can I make you believe the truth?"

"I believe that's the truth: as you know it to be." He dipped in a small bow. "Goodnight, Miss Elphaba. Until tomorrow."

Elphaba woke early then next morning, and with Nessa's groaning complaint against the hour, she slipped alone to breakfast. She pushed open the door in anticipation of a quick, unaccompanied breakfast, but her private solace disappeared with one pair of deep brown eyes.

"Morning."

She turned up her nose and sat as far away as possible. "Why are you here?"

"This is my castle, Elphaba. I live here." Fiyero gestured for a steward to bring their breakfast. "I trust you're hungry after neglecting your dinner."

"My appetite has nothing to do with you." He lifted an eyebrow at her choice of words, and she flushed. "So you're here to stalk me?"

"After your abrupt escape yesterday, it would serve you right."

Despite her anger, his coldness surprised her. "I see you're in a lovely mood this morning."

He snorted. "Moods. Well, you would be the expert."

"Oh, would I?" She shoved her chair back. "Well, I shan't sit here and be insulted. I've plenty of that without yours."

She stalked toward the door, but he caught the knob. "So you're running off again? Oz, and you claim I'm impossible!"

"You are!" She shoved his arm, but he kept her blocked from the door. "Let me go."

"So you can hide again? I think not."

She pushed him harder, and he pinned her arms against him. "Let go, you brute!"

"No," he grunted with the effort of resisting her struggles. "I think you've been indulged more than enough." The door swung open, and he jerked back in surprise. A steward backed out again, mumbling his apologies, but his entrance had been enough to remind Fiyero of propriety. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… You have the most frustrating way of making me forget myself."

"While you drive me to insanity with your own 'jests.'"

"At least I don't use good men like play-toys."

"What's that to mean?"

Fiyero did not back down. "Aruc is my friend. Whatever you think of him, he deserves better than to be used to make me angry."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know exactly," he spat out. "Asking him to escort you when you know how he feels about you. If you aren't interested, don't tease him with false hope."

"Didn't you say to give him a chance?"

"A real chance. Not a cold-hearted manipulation. Or does it only matter if you win some misguided struggle with me?"

"Oh, that's what this is about. You didn't get your way." She rolled her eyes. "Aruc is fine."

"He's infatuated with you, and you expect him not to be hurt when you bat your eyes at him one moment and shove him away the next?"

"For your information, I was completely honest with him," she snapped. "I have always been, and if he refuses to accept that, I can't help him."

"You expect me to believe you're so naïve?"

She paced away from him to stop the slap that itched for his cheek. "If I'm so manipulative, why did I tell him in no uncertain terms that my feelings for him would never change?"

"Was this before or after you draped yourself on his arm and batted your eyes at him?"

"You-!" She drew her hands in fists to stay calm. "Last night before I sent him away. Multiple times, in fact. I can't see in what fantasy world I've misled him!"

He studied her a moment. "You can't, can you?"

"No, I can't."

He softened. "Elphaba, do you have no experience at all with men? Can't you see that a beautiful woman like you need but crook her finger to have any man at her feet? That every hint of interest is infinitely magnified by his hope? A smile undoes a hundred warnings."

"Oh, you're being ridiculous." She waved her hands in annoyance. "I'm the harshest shrew that exists on the face of the planet, but you fault me for smiling too much?"

"You, Miss Elphaba, are no shrew."

"Isn't that why you're upset with me in the first place? Because I've run off in a temper."

He kept his voice even. "And why did you?"

She shifted. "You…I don't know."

"You do," he smoothed a hand across her forehead. "Tell me."

She blinked up at him, unable to confess her turmoil. So she studied the ground. "I've told you. Nessa." Her half-truth still felt suspiciously like a lie.

He tilted her chin toward him, but she kept her eyes away. "Have I made no progress in your favor? I am not trying to take her away. She is not stolen."

Elphaba drew a ragged breath and fought to stay in control. "She will be yours and not mine. Taken from me against my will. That's stolen."

"She will be ours. I would not keep her from you." His rested his forehead against hers, their noses in an odd caress, and he huffed an emotion-filled laugh. "As if I could deny you anything."

She let herself drink in the warmth of him, his smell, the feel of his hands on her elbows, lost in the guilty pleasure despite the complaints of her conscience.

Finally, he released her and tugged lightly on her braid. "I have to go. I'll look forward to undoing this all during that awful meeting." He pressed a kiss to her forehead where his had been. "Play nice with Aruc. I'll find you as soon as I can."

She watched him leave with a mixture of regret and relief. Despite the guilt, Elphaba couldn't help anticipating his return. Would he really be fixated on her stupid braid all through his meeting? She had half a mind to undo it herself to stop her obsessing. Aruc appeared in his usual good humor, but his many advances fell on deaf ears. She couldn't focus on their shallow conversation.

"Shall we read?" she suggested more to avoid his stares than anything else.

"What would you like?"

"Anything. What's that one?"

Aruc leered. "Why, Miss Elphaba. I had no idea you went for those bodice-ripper romances."

"Something else."

"No, no," he teased. "If that's what you'd like…" He turned to a page and read aloud, "The prince drew her to him, his eyes dark with yearning, and pressed against her in a searing kiss. His hand traveled down the long column of her neck, further still to the milky white-"

"Enough!" Elphaba blushed.

"But it's starting to get good." Aruc winked, and she snatched the book out of his hand to bop him on the head.

"Is there anything that's not indecent?"

He picked up the next volume and read off the title, "A Treatise of Reductive Economics in Times of War."

"That'll do." She grabbed the book and settled on the sofa to read. Aruc made a face at her choice, but with his own book in hand, lounged on the cushion beside her. She opened the dusty cover and read the first paragraph. It bled past her, and she reread it, uncomprehendingly. Perhaps she should exchange it for a more political book. Economics had never been her interest.

No, Aruc would tease her mercilessly. So she immersed herself in the dry text with her rogue imagination coloring the margins. Her attention wandered, and she found herself pondering what Fiyero's thoughts held. Did he feel the clock's ticking as painful and slow as she did.

She turned the page despite the lack of retention, and Aruc smiled. "You seem distracted, Miss Elphaba."

"What?"

He nodded toward her book. "Sure you wouldn't rather have the other?"

"You may keep your lewd literature all to yourself."

"You seem in high spirits today. You must have recovered from yesterday's headache."

"Has she?" Fiyero strode through the door. "Perhaps she'll be more lenient in our lesson today."

"Fiyero!" She shut her book with more enthusiasm than was discrete. "You're finally done."

"Now that's a welcome a man can appreciate."

Grinning, Fiyero crossed to her and cupped her cheek. Aruc bade them farewell, but it barely registered. "Why so long today?"

"I shan't tell you." He sat beside her and turned her shoulders. "I'm too worried to lose this rare good mood."

"Why?" Suspicion drenched the word, but he tsked.

"Not now. I've been waiting all morning for this, and I refuse to wait a moment more." He untwisted the braid to bury his fingers in her hair, and she shuddered, leaning back into his hands. "Like that?" he teased huskily.

"You have quite an affection for hair," she managed.

He pressed a kiss to her crown. "Well, you've quite the hair to inspire it. It's far too addictive." He lifted the cape of hair and sent it fluttering against her arms on its way down. "You have me entirely at your mercy."

She rolled her eyes. "I've hardly the monopoly on hair."

"True. But your hair is quite..." He wrapped the strand around his finger all the way to her scalp. "Mm, unique."

Her eyes closed, and he chuckled darkly. He dug both hands in her hair and tugged hard enough to make a wave of heat roll through her. "You'll tangle it," she murmured.

"Then I'll just have to untangle it," he all but growled.

Oz, she wanted him to. But her last shred of sanity pulled her away. This was for Nessa. He was for Nessa. She pushed the brush in his hand. "Braid it back."

"What?" He jerked back, surprised. "Did I-"

"Today's lesson," she interrupted. "We'll try something more complicated after you can manage that."

He didn't move, the brush frozen in his hand.

"Gather it to the back and split it into three equal sections."

"It's a tragedy." He shook his head. "Hair like yours shouldn't be hidden."

"Fiyero, stop being difficult. Nessa can't always wear it down." Elphaba forced a frown. "What if it's windy? You'd leave her with hair blowing in her eyes? It's not as if she could hold it back."

"I'm still against this in principle. You have no such excuse."

"This is about Nessa, not me." She emphasized the words in the hopes of convincing herself.

Fiyero raked his fingertips over her scalp in a needless show of gathering stray strands. The rhythm lulled her, and when he split the sections, he 'accidentally' dropped one to start all over.

"Stop stalling," she muttered. "You're going to run out of time."

"What a shame," he cooed, drawing his fingernails over her temple. "Then I suppose we'd have to try again tomorrow."

"Or I might decide you're hopeless and shave both Nessa's and my head."

"So cruel," he pouted. "Fine. Three sections."

"Then fold one over the middle."

"Does it matter which?"

"No." She somehow managed to keep her voice steady even as he traced the sensitive skin behind her ear. "Now the other side over the middle. And so on, and so forth, until you run out of hair."

He set to work, returning her hair to its familiar weave. "How is that?"

"Not bad. Of course, braiding is so easy even a moron could do it."

"Gee, thanks."

"Now again, tighter."

"Again?" She rolled her eyes, but she couldn't keep the smile off her face as he eagerly undid his handiwork. He raked it back and started again, this time emphasizing each turned lock with a firm pull. Her eyes fluttered shut.

"Remember Nessa's tender-headed," Elphaba breathed.

"You said tighter."

"Mm. Just a reminder."

"I see," he swallowed hard. "A very useful reminder." They fell into a tense silence until he lifted the finished braid to tie the ribbon.

She tested it, satisfied that it felt secure. "Much better. You did well."

"I wish I hadn't." He fingered the braid and sighed, "You'll drive me to distraction with this thing."

"You made it."

"Under protest." Fiyero lounged back against the sofa. "Did Aruc manage to behave today?"

She shrugged. "I mostly ignored him while we read."

"Oh? Anything good?"

"Some treatise on economics." He made a face. "Better than the trash Aruc wanted."

Fiyero turned to the small table on his side. "Is this it?" With a grin at her expression, he opened the book to a page halfway and read a bit. Then he snapped it shut with red cheeks. "I'll have to talk to Aruc about his choice of reading material."

"Why, need a recommendation?" Elphaba snarked, and Fiyero whirled on her.

"And if I do? What would you recommend in the way of-" he flipped to a dog-eared page, "'milky bosoms'?"

"You're terrible! As if I'd know." He gave her a knowing look, and she shoved his arm. "So much for gentlemanly!"

"I wasn't the one reading it."

"Nor I!" She crossed her arms. "You've read more of it than I have."

"So you confess to reading some?"

"No. Aruc read aloud."

"Did he now?" Fiyero lifted his eyebrows. "And how did you find it?"

"Indecent! It's your book. How did you find it?"

"Not mine." He laughed and turned the book over. "'The Prince and the Shrew'. An interesting name."

"Ridiculous you mean." He looked up at the change in her voice. The title taunted her, and she scowled. "You should be ashamed, owning such a book."

His brow furrowed. "I'll dispose of it then. I didn't mean to offend you. Honestly, I've never seen this book before." She scoffed. "Look, I'll toss it in the fire right here if you'd like."

"Wonderful. Now we're burning books?"

He froze, unnerved by her sudden antagonism. "I confess, I don't understand what you want here."

"Nothing." She stood. "Nothing at all."

"Where are you going?"

"Nessa should be back soon."

"And we'll see them through the window like always."

"What reasons have we to stay? Our lesson is accomplished."

"Then show me more."

"I beg your pardon?" Her eyes widened, and he frowned.

"Of our lessons." Of course that was his meaning. She cursed her own worthless over-imagination. What was the matter with her? Her self-annoyance overflowed into bitterness at him. Didn't he see why the title would offend her? Couldn't he tell she was sinking in her own ridiculous hormones? Or did he tease her because he couldn't fathom to think of her that way? As if she were some androgynous lump of person.

Maybe she just wished she saw him that way, too. It would certainly be easier.

"We haven't time."

"I thought you said we had too much to justify waiting here."

"But not enough to begin another tedious trial of my patience." She crossed the room to distance herself from him, but he followed.

"Am I such a trial?"

"Yes," she barked, perversely pleased with his hurt expression. "Still rare and pleasing?"

He winced at her spite. "What is the matter with you?"

"You are!"

"I'm sorry my presence so offends you."

She gave a haughty shrug despite a full awareness of the atrociousness of her behavior.

"Please forgive me for wasting your time." He strode halfway to the door before pacing back, frustration oozing off him in waves. "Why do you do that? One moment we get along fine and the next you're furious with me for reasons I can't fathom."

She adopted a disdainful pose. "Yes, well you know how women are."

"Oh, that's codswallop."

"Even if I don't look it," she thrust her jaw forward, invading his space, "I am actually a woman."

"Trust me, I've noticed!" He seemed as shocked as she by his outburst, and he shut his eyes to compose himself. "What I mean is," his voice calm, "all women deserve more respect than that."

Her mouth snapped shut as she struggled to think of a quality comeback.

He edged closer. "I wish you would tell me which of my flaws so offends you that I might dispose of it."

Her eyes flicked up to his, and then away. "It's not you," she conceded, exhaustion coating the words. "You have no flaws."

"Hardly. I'm sure you could catalog them from sunrise to sunset."

How she wished he were right! Maybe then she wouldn't feel this inescapable pull, wouldn't betray her sister's trust as her mind wandered to inexcusable places. "Perhaps you pulled my hair too tight in this braid after all." She offered the weak joke with a timid smile.

"That I can easily remedy." He set a warm hand on the nape of her neck, and she rolled her eyes.

"You and your hair."

He leaned forward to whisper against her forehead, "No, sweet Elphaba, you and your hair."