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Time is too short for me to play with my relationship any more than I already have. There are less than three weeks until the second passage, and then Daxeel will be gone for the duration of it. About a week spent battling on the Mountain of Slumber. That week will not be useful to me in fighting for a future with him. So really, I have just more than two weeks with Daxeel. Then the Sacrament ends—and father steals me back to Licht, either throws me into a cruel marriage, or sends me off to the Grott as punishment for all my wrongs committed here in the Midlands.

Some short weeks left to save my future.

I don’t want to risk any of those precious minutes on Aleana getting cross with me. The reluctance keeps my tone careful as I say, “Seems everyone is so busy considering what they think is best for you, rather than listening to what you actually want.” I know the feeling. “Maybe—” I glance down the ice-floor at Daxeel. He watches us closely, but from this distance, I doubt he can hear us. Still, I keep my voice low, just in case. “—you could write a letter. If you have not enough courage to face theone you want, write a letter to him. Daxeel doesn’t have to know everything.”

“Maybe,” she echoes in a whisper, and so I know she hides her words from her watchful brother as I do, “if he agrees, someone could keep Daxeel distracted for that time.”

Distract Daxeel while his best friend beds his sister.

Yes, I get myself into all sorts of bother.

Hardly matters that it comes from a good place, does it? Not when the result is helping another betrayal against the love of my life.

My enthusiasm shows in the heavy sigh I release.

I drop my head in what feels so much like defeat.

But Aleana doesn’t notice anything other than Eamon who skids around us at a leaning angle, taunting us.

Ridge has taken to leaning against the barrier where Daxeel has his forearms braced on the ledge.

It takes me a few moments to find Dare, and if I thought he was predictable, I was wrong.

He doesn’t flirt with anyone or eye-bed any nearby females. He stands in front of a floor-to-ceiling portrait of sorts, an image of something I’ve enjoyed before, but only once: A dark wafer cone swirled with chocolate beneath a beige-toned ice-cream.

He's enamoured by it, this picture of ice-cream.

A snort jerks me before I turn back to Aleana.

Her smile follows Eamon as he keeps his wide circles around us, around and around, but her lashes are heavier now, her grip on my hands looser.

“How do you feel?” I ask.

Her voice is silk, “Like I’m gliding.”

And so, for a long while, we keep gliding.

The time comes when Eamon waves us down from the other side of the ice-floor.

Daxeel’s gaze isn’t focused only on me as I support the bulk of Aleana’s weight and skate over to them. He watches us both, silent, face unreadable.

Then he moves for Aleana and helps her to the bench.

Eamon and Ridge are already back in their boots by the time I’m tugging my skates off.

Dare gestures to the massive portrait that’s glossed on the wall, and there is nothing playful in his tone as he says, “I want that.”

And there it is.

Another sliver of litalf in his otherwise dark nature.

What dokkalf sees an image of ice-cream and decides he must find one to taste for himself?

None.

It’s so decidedly litalf of him, not unlike the curious gleam in his glamoured-hazel eyes as he throws the portrait a final glance before we leave the hall of ice floor.

Ridge stirs a spoonful of chocolate chips into his mint ice-cream. “Where are the others?”