Page 101 of Antiletum

Delaney shook her head. “You won’t hurt me.” She had never been more certain of anything in her life.

Slowly, as if worried quick movement might spook her straight into her senses, Sebastian came closer to her again. Swallowed hard. “No. I won’t.”

She lifted a hand, reaching to wipe a shining smear of blood from his black hair—desperately stretching for an excuse to touch it.

When he realized what she was doing, Sebastian jerked away.

Delaney dropped her hand. “I’m sorry—”

“No,” he interrupted. “I don’t mind if you touch me. It’s just…”

“Just what?”

“I haven’t washed it. My hair. Not in a while.” His cheeks tinged pink. Openly embarrassed. Insecurity flittered across his features. She wanted nothing more to wipe it away, the same as the blood streaked across his face, drawn for her.

Delaney removed her hat, revealing the tight, intricate plaits against her skull, thick and shining with oil. “Neither have I.”

Thanks to the drought, bathing rations were limited at the inn they stayed at the night before. And all of it went to Rainah, the future Lady ofNoctua,in order to be presentable when meeting her future husband.

Sebastian stared at her as if he’d never encountered anyone like her before. Accepting her insinuation that beneath clothing and status and everything the world projected onto them, everything that would try to tear them apart, they were the same.

Inspiration overtook Delaney. She removed one of the gold clasps decorating her braids. She hadn’t seen the point of the adornmentshidden beneath her hat, but her mother had insisted. And for this particular instance, Delaney was grateful for it.

“Can I give this to you?” she asked awkwardly, well aware that a hair trinket wasn’t exactly a fitting gift for a boy, but she had nothing else to offer. Instead of laughing at her; or sneering at it; or taking it from her hand, he leaned forward, indicating he wanted her to place it in his hair—dirty like hers—that he only was just afraid for her to touch.

Accepting her the way she accepted him.

“You want to wear it?” she asked, pleasantly surprised.

“Don’t you want me to?”

“Yes,” Delaney admitted. “Very much.”

“I think I’d do anything in this world that you asked of me,” he said seriously and her heart skipped a beat. She hoped it would survive this encounter, for all the irregularities Sebastian was inspiring within it.

His admission had warmth flowing through her, sufficiently putting to bed any of her worries that he might not be as completely smitten by her as she was him. As if his defending her honor through murder wasn’t enough.

With Sebastian’s height, Delaney leaned up to the tips of her toes to clasp the cuff near his bun. The dahlia etched on it was clear, it glinted in the sunlight, stark against his dark hair. The adornment transformed as it shifted owners—adding to his beautiful masculinity, where before it complemented her feminine features.

She bent down, tearing off a piece of delicate fabric from her skirt.

Sebastian frowned, watching Delaney dip the scrap into the fountain. “What are you doing?”

“You probably shouldn’t traipse around with blood on your face. Might harm my inconspicuousness.”

“You can still leave,” he said softly.

“I think I’ve made it clear that I don’t want to leave. Giving you a gift wasn’t me saying goodbye.”

No. It said the opposite. It said so much more.

Delaney gently cleaned the blood from his face and Sebastian scrubbed his hands in the sacred fountain before they quit the courtyard—bloody fabric, the corpse of the vagrant, and Delaney’s wish the only things they left behind.

25

For you, I could change the world

Delaney