Luxa tells the Overlander that she is doing fine while simultaneously prying at the crown atop her head.
It is in moments like these that she longs to rewind time — but time once lost is never returned. Were it possible to take some of one's future time and deal it to the past, the world might be all more simple. But it is not possible, and the world is not simple. So she must deal with her misstep.
For a moment, she fears that he has noticed. In reality, it does not matter whether he has noticed or not — he, of all people, would be the least likely to understand the gravity of a queen wishing to lay down her crown in times of war and strife. But she— she does not want him to know.
The more who know, the more a commonly accepted fact this becomes.
It is not a fact, Aurora has said, for you do not truly desire it.
Part of me does, Luxa will say, so what does that make me?
But she will not. Both of them know that. Every soldier and every advisor, every council member and every diplomat, every peasant and every poor man know that she will not pry the ring from her head in times such as these.
Queens have little time for cowardice.
And she could never turn her back on her people whilst still claiming to care for them.
The Overlander does not ask. The Overlander does not even attempt to let on that he has noticed.
But there is something about his eyes — about the depth of the brown of his irises, the slight curve of his brows, the crinkle of his temple — that tells her — he knows. He knows, yet he chooses not to say a thing. For his eyes, too, are underscored by purple bags, and his face, too, is marked by weary lines.
And perhaps, perhaps, Luxa cannot help thinking, perhaps he, too, wears a sort of crown upon his head that he longs to pry at, yet cannot — for he, too, bears a world of his own on his shoulders. She knows, because she has seen the terror in his eyes, and the conviction in his tense shoulders, as he looked to his laughing infant sister.
So when Gregor says, in response to her statement that he has returned to the Underland, that he did not have much of a choice, Luxa has only one answer for him.
"No," she says. "You and I never seem to have much choice."