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In the velvet-walled staging hall, I listened to the rising voices of the audience beyond the curtain. The noise climbed over the rigs and lights and found us waiting apprentices, soon-to-be fellows. It raised gooseflesh on my skin.

Young men and women were separated for their graduation. It was tradition, they said, for the gentlemen to go first. I suspected the separation was more an afterthought. Women hadn’t always been welcomed here.

“Nina?”

I jumped, heart clanging against my ribs.

Theo appeared at my side, his fingers already wrapping around mine. “Shh,” he warned, eyes darting to a custodian checking names off a list. “Come with me.”

Theo pulled me out of the line into the corridor, and like a fool, I followed him, swelling with hope.

We only went as far as the corner, where the L-bend of the hall became a series of doors for backstage preparations. He leaned his shoulder against the wall and kept his grip on my hand. My fingers tingled in his.

“I wanted the chance to… to wish you luck,” he said, hurriedly. “And to say goodbye, I suppose.”

Hope fled. Theo could see it leak out of me, I was sure. His eyes tracked the way my shoulders fell. I didn’t have the fortitude to hide my disappointment.

I ached all over.

It had been weeks since he’d cornered me in a garden and told me that circumstances had changed. That he’d changed his mind. That he was so very sorry.

I didn’t understand how he wasn’t aching. It had been weeks, and I ached still.

“Well,” I uttered. I did not recognize my voice. “Goodbye, then.”

He sighed and looked away, and finally, finally, he showed some of the torment I felt. He squeezed my hand, his eyes pinched. “It’s for the best, Clarke.”

“Is it?”

He grinned sadly. “I’m afraid so.”

“Is that what your father told you? Your mother?” I dared to ask. The words had crouched and readied themselves each time I’d passed Theo in the halls.

He frowned. “We’re only eighteen,” he said. “If… in two years’ time we still feel the same way for each other—”

“What do you want, Theo?” I cut him short, for surely he wanted something other than to say good luck and goodbye.

His stare softened. “Clarke, I—I only wanted to check that you were well.”

“I am.”

“And that there were no hard feelings.”

A cheerless laugh bubbled up from me. “There are no feelings at all. You made that clear.”

He groaned and scrubbed his face with his hand. “You don’t play fair, Clarke. I never said that. You’re my best friend. I…” Whatever he wished to say seemed stuck in his throat. “You know what my father expects of me. What I’ve been working toward. I’ll be leaving for Thornton next week and won’t return for two years. I don’t want to keep you waiting.” This much was true. Lord Tanner himself had insisted that Theo spend time in the channels of the South with the nation’s most renowned waterCharmers. A huge honor, though I suspected Lord Shop simply wished to remove his only child from the city while it was under threat and had struck a deal with someone.

Theo groaned quietly, then came closer. Somehow, he’d grown even more handsome in the past few weeks. Every girl in this hall would agree. “You know that I care for you, Nina.” His hand came to my cheek, then slid into the snarls of my hair. “Whatever you may think of me,” he whispered in my ear, “you must know that this isn’t what I wanted.”

I felt the slow unspooling of my restraint as he spoke, but I did not completely thaw. There were rumors that already he’d replaced me with someone else.

“If you want me to come for you when I return,” he said softly, angling my face to his. “Then say it, and I will come.”

And wasn’t this exactly what I’d wished for?

He watched as my mind stumbled, and in the absence of an answer, his lips descended.

They pressed against mine, just as achingly sweet as I feared they’d be.