Page 25

Here, I chance a glance around the corner. I watch as Leo takes the book; a short, red-bound volume stamped with the golden letters of the publisher.

Leo scans the page.

Leo stutters out, “Your honeyed eyes, Juventius, if… sorry. Hang on. If anyone should let me kiss… all the time, uh.”

“It’s fine,” Silas says. His dark eyes are already darkening further.

I know it. Mellitos oculos tuos, Iuventi…

A love poem. Catullus.

“No, no, I’ll, uh.” Leo clears his throat. “If anyone should let me continually kiss your honey-sweet eyes, Juventius—”

“—I would kiss them three hundred thousand times, and I should never have enough.”

I finish for him without thinking. God, I don’t know why I do it, but it’s done, and I’m in the doorway with embroidered socks in my hand, and it’s not like I can hide. I step back on one foot trying to hide my regret.

Leo turns. They both stare at me. The silence is so terrible I consider screaming just to break it. Instead of going completely insane, I say something even more forward. Some bravery flares in me as I murmur, “It’s not very popular, that one, but I like it. The Romans weren’t too shy about kissing other men and writing it down.”

“Is that why you like it?” Silas says gruffly. I stiffen on instinct, body readying itself to flee. I can’t tell if there’s judgement in his tone, or something else, but I brace myself for another round of ‘ponce’, ‘sodomite’, ‘pervert’, which I can’t say is a particularly fun game. I flash a look to Leo, who is considering me with a half grin. His canines are exposed and glinting like a predator’s, which makes my stomach flip, so I glance back down at Silas.

“I always forget you Londoners are uptight about that,” he murmurs, reaching over to pluck the book from Leo’s hands. He closes the book stiffly and reaches back between his legs to slot it away, glancing up as he does. “I didn’t—mean anything by it.”

I stare for probably too long, trying to assess how near Silas and Leo are, and if there’s more in that hand width of distance between them. Are they together?

Do I care?

Yes, idiot, you very much do. I give a lavish shrug but stay standing precariously between the room and the hall. “Am I interrupting?”

“Hardly,” Silas says, and he stands to excuse himself. I feel him tense as he edges slowly between me and the doorway.

I turn back to Leo. “I scared him away.”

Leo smiles, then kills it, turning his head. “That’s the most he’s spoken since I’ve known him.”

So not fucking then. Not that you need words to fuck.

“Well, he clearly just needed inspiration.” I drum my fingers on the frame. I want to say more, but I am this awkward, overeager beanpole hovering with too much interest.

Leo laughs, runs his tongue along his teeth again; like he’s putting on a show just for me. “Sure. You’re certainly inspiring.”

I laugh, too. I can’t help it. “Do I really look so desperate for flattery?”

I say this whilst still perched at the threshold.

Leo turns back to me, and there’s that gleam in his eye, the one that makes me question whether what he shows me is ever the real him. “Will I hurt your feelings if I say yes?”

Now the spell is ruined, and I can pull myself out of whatever stupid direction my desire was pulling me. “Keep your head tomorrow, Leo Shaw.”

I go to turn away, and he shouts after me. I stay paralysed waiting for his question.

“Do you think I can win these trials?”

It is not a question I’m prepared for. How the hell am I supposed to know? Glancing over my shoulder, I see him halfway out of his seat. “Leo, I don’t know a damned thing more than you do about these trials.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“I know,” I say. Then I gesture to the size of him. “But, at the very least, you look like you can hold your own.”