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Aloud, she went with, “You’re a horrible tease,” and sucked a smudge of chocolate off one finger with a pout.

“Who’s teasing now?” At the heat in his gaze, Alessa understood the wordsmolderfor the first time.

She peeked up at him through her lashes. “Ask nicely, and I’m all yours.”

He coughed on nothing.

“Itisyou!” a loud voice slurred.

Dante shoved the tall boy careening toward them—not to hurt him, just to stop him—but he took a minute to regain his balance anyway.

“Sorry.” Kaleb’s white teeth flashed beneath his jade mask. “Didn’t suspect—aspect—” He stopped. “Expect! Didn’texpectto see you here, but I won’t tell anyone. Do I look heroic?” He draped a strip of scarlet fabric over his shoulders and struck a pose. “Just needed the right outfit.” He bit off the consonants in his attempt to enunciate clearly, and the effect of his slurred speech paired with the ridiculous pose sent Alessa into a fit of giggles.

“Absolutely,” she said. “I am in awe.” She wanted to shoo him away, to forget thatthiswas the boy she’d be marrying in the morning, not the one on her arm, but Kaleb looked so sheepish as he dropped the pose that she didn’t have the heart to hint for him to leave.

“Doubtful,” he said. “I’ve been a real tool, but I’ll do better.”

Dante turned away, pretending to be absorbed in the festivities.

“It’s never too late to become who you want to be, Kaleb,” Alessa said. “I should know.”

“Maybe you can teach me,” he said. “Partners, right?”

“Right.”

“Way more fun out here, though.” Kaleb’s hand swept through the air, and Dante caught a statuette he knocked over.

“Enjoy yourself tonight, Kaleb,” Alessa said. “But try to sober up before the morning. I’d like you to remember it later. And drink some water.”

Kaleb gave her a wobbly salute and yanked her into a loose, awkward hug, his head cocked at an angle so their faces didn’t touch.

“Your friends have left you behind,” Dante said, prying Kaleb off and guiding him with a firm hand on his shoulder. “How about you catch up with them, eh?”

Kaleb loped off, and Dante and Alessa continued down the street alone, pausing to watch dancers twirl and dip, tossing coins into a mandolin player’s case, and laughing at a puppet show where a miniature Finestra pounded a stuffed scarabeo to death while a crowd cheered.

“If only it were that easy,” she whispered.

“Maybe it will be.”

“I hope so,” she said, trying to soak in the sight of every joyful face.

The streets were so densely packed they could hardly move through the riotous mass of Saverians. Polished city residents passed drinks to roughnecks from the docks, and wide-eyed villagers rubbed elbows with rowdy sailors, listening raptly to stories told by settlers returned from the continent, easily identified by their out-of-style, homespun clothes and universal air of bravado. It took a special kind of person to voluntarily leave Saverio’s comforts for the battered continent. Alessa slowed as she passeda small crowd crying tears of mirth as a woman in a sleeveless tunic, her skin burnished by long days under the sun, shouted a tale that ended with an imitation of her partner falling into an ancient canal in the ruins after too many ghost stories.

Dante chuckled, but Alessa’s laughter faded quickly. The longer the battle, the more of these people would die. Soldiers, the Marked, and their children who were too young to enter the Fortezza without them. The colorful, vibrant streets would soon become a battlefield, and she was their last line of defense.

“This way,” Dante said.

Twining his fingers with hers, he towed her along as he cut a path through the revelers. Her view was nothing but backs and chests, and in the center of it all, Dante’s sure grip and confident stride, parting the crowd with his broad shoulders and effortless air of command. They broke free from the mass of humanity when he led her into an alley so narrow he had to release her hand.

She couldn’t resist.

As she stopped, Dante turned back, and she made a show of examining the alley and wiggling her eyebrow.

“I promise,” he said with a laugh. “There are better places than alleys.”

Soon, the ocean rolled out before them, so glorious in the dying sunset that she could hardly believe anything cruel and ugly could exist in the same world.

They weren’t the only Carnevale-goers who’d had the same idea, and she averted her eyes from the scattered couples dotting the sand, an ache growing in her chest.