Pg. 149 when he "realizes" she might be jealous
"I don't even rate a 'good night'?" Quince asked as Lily's wrist slipped out of his grip. "I think I've earned it."
Quince had a few moments' warning of Lily's tension building until she finally let her sarcasm bubble to the surface. "Ha! How, exactly, did you earn a 'good night'? By kissing me uninvited? Twice! Or by letting the entire assembly at my cousin's debut party believe we were a couple-"
Quince picked one foot off the garage ground to climb off the back, standing with his body fully facing the princess. "Hey, I was just following your lead on that one."
"Or, wait. Maybe it was by spending all day flirting and holding hands with my boy-crazy cousin while I was stuck in the palace smelling like a frogging lobster," then, Lily placed both her palms on his chest and shoved him away from her. "You're right. Good," then she pushed him back again. "Night!"
Quince barely registered her shoves or even that Lily was stomping away from him, cutting across the grass to her own front steps. He felt the heat and tension from her anger, her emotions cutting through his own. Everything had to click into place before he spoke, suddenly looking at her silhouette in the night across the lawns. After everything, the long ass day of everything in the kingdom and swimming back into Seaview, the silence between them amidst everything. The confusion that Quince was feeling, convincing himself more and more that Lily might never grow past Brody to see herself for how amazing she actually was. But now? This was a glimmer of something. "You actually are jealous, aren't you?"
Quince couldn't read her thoughts, but he knew she was still mad. She was ticked off, still stood on her front porch as he walked over to stand directly behind her. He lowered his face to her ear, seizing the opportunity for what it was: to make an impact on her. He needed her to see their potential. There was a week until they would go back to Thalassinia to break this bond once and for all, and he had to prove to her that their relationship was worth it.
"I'm not interested in your cousin, Princess," he whispered, not as a nickname, instead using her formal title. "She's a child. Fun to hang with for a day, maybe, but I prefer a little more...depth."
Her ferocity faded, and then she mumbled to herself. "The bond," a few moments go by, and Quince stays close to her, waiting, hoping that maybe she would give an actual response to what he'd said.
"You'll need to drink a lot of salt water. Probably a few glasses a day."
A beat.
"Anything else?" Quince asked, taking her advice seriously. He wasn't very experienced in the grand scheme of turning-into-a-fish. Lily seemed to know a lot more about that sort of thing.
"Take baths. Every night. Ice-cold baths," she demanded.
Quince pouted, half-jokingly, "Ice-cold?"
"Well, maybe room temperature."
"I can do that," he answered confidently. The last salt bath had been very relaxing, albeit a little strange for him. Probably the first bath he'd taken since he was a kid.
"That'll get you through the week," Lily said, her back still to him.
"Thank you," he said quickly, and then she stepped up her porch to the front door. Quince spoke up once more to her, "Good night, Lily."
And then he walked across the grass, stepping into his own home.