Crow couldn’t believe how incredibly well things were going at the castle within the last two nights. Yesterday, he’d gotten a break from his classes, had a surprisingly relaxing afternoon with his siblings, enjoyed the party, and had gotten to sneak away for some alone time with Penelope. Today, he had woken up next to the knight, and John had announced that he approved of their eventual marriage. It almost felt like a dream. If it was, he hoped he would never wake up.

As her father proposed a way to get him out of the bedchamber in plain sight, the viceroy raised a quizzical brow at him. He hadn’t expected the rule-abiding older man to come up with a plan so quickly, let alone help them in the first place. However, in the next moment, he remembered that John had had an affair with one of his servants long ago. He wouldn’t have been able to pull that off if he didn’t have a crafty side. It had just taken until now for him to show it to them.

When John told them to clean themselves up, Crow nodded and straightened out his clothes. He noticed with some embarrassment that, in a rush, he’d put his tunic on backwards, so he turned it around and smoothed down the fabric to make the wrinkles less noticeable. When that was done, he waited for Penelope to fix her hair first before he borrowed her comb to untangle the knots in his own. Just one glance in the mirror was enough to show him that he looked much more put-together than he had when her father had first arrived.

Once everyone was ready, John led them into the hallway, where a few other castle guards were making their way to the Great Hall for breakfast. The men were clearly surprised to see their king’s viceroy appear in the lower wing so early in the day, but Crow pointedly walked next to John instead of Penelope, so it would appear that he was visiting the father and not the daughter. The ploy seemed to work. At the very least, no one was whispering or otherwise drawing attention to them.

As they walked, another thought came to mind, and he turned to Penelope curiously, “By the way, now that you’ve got all the support you needed, when are you going to be meeting with the king?”