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“Mmm,” he says in response, running his hand over them again.

One of the paintbrushes wanders away from the parchment, floating down to the side table next to me. It dips its bristles into one of the pots of paint, and then, once it’s coated with black paint, it floats up and over my body.

Before it makes it back to the parchment, a glob of the paint hits my shoulder.

“Des!”

He laughs, totally aware of what just happened.

“You did that on purpose!”

“Maybe,” he says evasively, a grin in his voice. He brings his hand up to my shoulder and, using his thumb, rubs the paint into my skin.

I breathe in the smell of him, his scent mixed with mine. “I think we should skip more events,” I whisper.

He turns his face to me, his lips brushing my forehead. “Nowthat,” he says, “is an absolutely brilliant idea.”

I smile a little as I run my fingers over his chest, where his sweat still slickens it. I draw swirls into his skin before continuing on, my touch tracing over the tattoos that wrap down his arms. One day I’ll know the designs by heart.

He finishes the painting in silence, the two of us watching it reach completion. Once it’s finished, it and the paintbrushes all lower themselves to the side table.

“I have a secret to share,” Des murmurs, his mouth pressed close to my hair.

I still.

He’s shared secrets in the past but often only after prodding. For him to offer one up… When he did it earlier in the day, while I was getting healed, I thought it was a one-off event meant to distract me from the situation. But now, it’s possible he’s simply opening up to me more,trustingme more.

I angle my head to look up at him.

Where minutes ago he was carefree and content, now he looks somber.

“When I close my eyes, all I see is the shape of your face and the brightness of your smile. You are the stars in my dark sky, cherub.”

That isn’t at all what I expected to come out of his mouth. My heart, I’m finding, is simply not big enough to hold everything I feel for this man.

Des swallows gently. “You and I share many tragedies. Mothers who died too soon. Terrible fathers…”

He said something similar days ago.

He takes a deep breath. “My father was killing off all his heirs when my mother discovered she was pregnant,” Des begins, repeating what he already told me. “She fled the palace before anyone else could discover this fact.

“The kingdom simply thought she’d deserted her king—a grave enough offense. And the slight didn’t go unnoticed. From everything I’ve learned, my mother had been my father’s favorite concubine. It must’ve bruised his ego.

“He spent years searching for her, but she’d had a career as a spy; she knew how to hide.

“She raised me in Arestys, shielding the truth of our identities and the extent of our power from the world. She did a good job hiding us, but…I exposed us.” He says this with such guilt.

“As soon as he discovered our existence, my father came for us, and—he killed her.”

I feel horror closing my throat.

Des’s eyes are far away, as though he’s seeing the memory unfold all over again. He runs a hand over his face. “I was fifteen when I watched my mother die.”

I can’t even fathom…

“Des, I’m so sorry.”

Has asorryever, in the history of the world, made a situation like this better? And yet I can’tnotsay it.