Page 49

The good weather finally gave out, rain misting down in a slow, steady sheet as Taly and Skye walked hand-in-hand through the empty streets of Ryme.

The night had stretched long with laughter and conversation, the drinks flowing, the music a steady pulse beneath it all. At some point, Skye pulled her onto the dance floor, and Taly let him, despite her firm no-drinking-and-dancing rule.

The first song was quick, all rhythm and percussion.

The kind of tempo that grabbed you by the ribs and didn’t let go.

The crowd surged, feet stomping in time, bodies jostling shoulder to shoulder, and Skye carried her through all of it.

Turn, step, twist, laugh. She didn’t have time to think, just feel.

Then the music changed to something slower and thicker.

She started to step back, but he didn’t let her.

Just pulled her back in. They’d danced before, plenty of times.

But back then, they didn’t hold each other like this.

Not with his hand pressed so low, or her head on his shoulder, swaying in time to the beat.

One by one, their friends drifted off. Aimee disappeared with Swift, and Aiden called it a night soon after. By the end, only Kato remained at their table, nursing a final drink with Eula, fresh off her shift.

Bronze streetlamps lined either side of the wide avenue leading to the townhouse, fire crystals flickering within.

“So,” Skye said as they started up the hill, “was it everything you dreamed it would be? Taly’s big night out, full of drinking and dancing…”

She laughed and let him twirl her in the middle of the road before tugging her body close to his. “You had fun.”

“Maybe a little,” he admitted. Grudgingly. “More importantly—did you have fun?”

“I… I think so.”

“You only think?”

Taly shrugged, not quite knowing how to put the feeling into words. There was something about being around people again. Something she hadn’t realized until she’d walked into that bar and been bombarded by the chatter and laughter, the tangle of scents, the heat of so many bodies packed tight.

“At the palace,” she said, “every day was just like the one that came before it. There was no forward motion. Tonight, though… tonight, it felt like I was finally moving again. Like I was living . I think—I think I’d forgotten what that felt like.”

The words sounded as stupid coming out of her mouth as they had in her head, but the hand at her waist gave a squeeze. “Worth it then.” He kissed her hair, whispering into it, “Even if there are other things I would’ve rather been doing.”

Taly didn’t miss the suggestive lilt to his voice. “Like what?” she asked, glad that her cheeks were already flushed from the cold. “Chess?”

Skye’s lips twitched. “Not quite.”

“Checkers?”

“No.”

“Penumbra?”

“Neither of us knows how to play Penumbra.”

“I could’ve learned.”

“Did you?”

“No,” she said and kicked a pebble down the street. “Did you want to… spar?”

Skye gave a low, dark chuckle that made everything inside her turn molten. “After a fashion.”

They were through the townhouse gates, walking the garden path along the perimeter, when Skye said, “So, I’ve been thinking—”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

He flicked her nose and kept going, “I’ve been thinking that we skipped a few steps. Watching you and Ren tonight, I… well, I realized I got lucky. In a lot of ways. I never had to court you… to prove my worth as a mate, I guess.”

They stopped in front of a large fountain still drained for the winter. Taly looked up at him, brow furrowing. “Why would you need to prove yourself to me?”

“Because… I don’t know.” He shuffled awkwardly. “I was the dumb kid that used to enchant your books to rearrange themselves, and flip your room sideways, and put pink dye in your soap.”

Taly winced at the memory, if only because he’d failed to check if the brand of dye was one that would wash out.

He went on, faster now, like he was afraid of losing momentum, “Because you’ve had a front-row seat to every stupid thing I’ve ever done, and because, I don’t know, we were…

young together. If we had met in Arylaan or Ghislain or anywhere else, I would’ve had to win you.

The same way that Ren or any other man would’ve tried to win you.

Fate just intervened early, and I was lucky enough that by the time I realized I was in love with you, you already loved me too. ”

Maybe it was the words, the raw honesty of them—or maybe it was just the alcohol making her emotional—but Taly’s eyes began to sting. “So, what I’m hearing,” she said, wiping her cheeks, “is that you were jealous.”

Skye laughed, grinning as he ducked his head, and she wondered if any of the women at court, the ones she’d always been so secretly jealous of, ever got to see that smile.

The one that was real and honest and made his eyes light up—and that always got put away when he assumed the mask of the Heir to Ghislain.

He fished in his pocket. “Look, I was planning on giving you this—in the version of events where I didn’t completely fuck up telling you about the bond. And keep in mind, I can change it if you don’t like it. Make it look like anything you want.”

There was a flicker in the dark.

Taly gasped and grabbed the necklace—her mother’s necklace—clutching it to her chest. “Where did you find this?”

The Queen had taken it from her that first night at the palace. She thought it was lost forever.

“I didn’t, technically,” Skye said, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’ll have to ask Aiden for that story. Though I did keep Sarina from prematurely burying it inside an urn.”

Taly wasn’t sure why she laughed at that, but she did, turning the necklace over in her hands.

In the center was the familiar teardrop pendant—pink quartz with a small divot in the center.

But it now hovered inside a cage of gold and silver braided from the stems of delicate snowdrops crawling along the chain.

Mother-of-pearl petals dangled like beads.

Skye shifted, gravel crunching underfoot. “Do you… like it?”

Taly shook her head.

“Love it?” he asked, cautious but hopeful.

She nodded, tears finally spilling over.

He took her hand, softly kissing her palm before threading their fingers together. “I know the humans have their own traditions surrounding these kinds of things, and I don’t expect any of that to be less important to you now.”

She frowned up at him. “What are you talking about?”

Skye took a long, shuddering breath—and then dropped to one knee.

Taly stopped hearing the rain. Stopped feeling the cold. Her entire world narrowed to the man in front of her and the dull, frantic beat of her heart.

No.

No, no, no.

Not a Fey tradition, but a human one, and he couldn’t possibly be serious.

It was too much, too fast, and she had reasons for why this was a terrible idea. She just couldn’t remember any of them right now. Not as he took her hands in his and a giddy, selfish thrill shot through her.

“Talya Caro,” Skye whispered, and she tried to shake her head. Tried to remember how to breathe as he looked up at her with wide, earnest eyes and said, “will you please… let me use the shower first?”

For the second time in under a minute, the world fell out from beneath her.

“It’s freezing,” he said, the beginnings of a smirk hovering at the corners of his mouth. He’d no doubt heard those infinitely long moments when her heart had stopped beating. “And wet. And you use so much hot water.”

Taly pried her hands from his. “I’m going to kill you,” she said, low and dangerous, and Shards, why the hell was she smiling at this asshole? “You are so dead.”

“You can’t say you didn’t deserve that.” Skye was on his feet now, already scuttling towards the back door. “After what you did to me on the roof?”

He wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t stop Taly from trying to grab him.

He dodged—a blur of motion. “So, about the shower…” He dodged again, swatting her fist away. “Is that a yes?” Dodged again. “I’m just going to take that as a yes.”

Skye lunged for the door, but Taly rooted his feet to the ground with a flash of golden aether and slipped past him.

“You know I can break out of this,” he called after her, laughing.

“Oh, I know,” she said, grinning wildly as she turned and braced one hand against the back door. “But I don’t need to stop you. I just have to beat you upstairs.”

And with that, she slammed and locked the door.

As it turned out, even having a head start on a shadow mage didn’t equal an easy victory. It took exactly five seconds before Taly heard the side door open and close. Even using her magic to quicken her pace, Skye had already caught up by the time she skidded into the main hall.

Across the room, their eyes met. He thought he’d won. She could see it on his face, in his smug, reckless smile.

But she was standing beneath the stairs, right in the center of the spiral, and all she had to do was look up, all the way to the domed top, and find her destination. It just had to be a point that she could see…

Taly phased, slipping through the Weave and reappearing on the top floor. Skye’s whispered curse followed her all the way up, and she glanced down, only to find him zigzagging across the central column, leaping from the banisters silent as a shadow.

She stopped wasting time, barreling into their shared apartment a moment later. The washroom was halfway between their rooms. She sprinted for it and tried to slam the door behind her—but he caught it, wedging his foot in the frame before she could lock him out.

The washroom was all white tile trimmed with dark wood. There was a deep clawfoot tub in one corner and a large open shower on the back wall, partially concealed by a pane of fogged blue-green glass.

That’s where Taly lunged, giving up on the door. “It’s mine,” she crowed gleefully and threw out another spell.

One he easily rebuffed with a flare of violet aether, grabbing her around the waist just as she managed to set foot in the shower.