Page 44 of Echo North

His forehead creased in concentration. “I think my father rules a duchy.”

“You’re a duke, then.”

“I suppose I am.”

I laughed. “Am I to call you Lord Hal?”

“You may call me whatever you like.” A lazy smile crinkled up the corners of his eyes. “What about you, Echo? What do you want to do when your year in the house under the mountain is over?”

Across the ballroom, stars were appearing outside the windows, gleaming points of white fire. “I want to attend the university, if I can gather the entrance fee. I want to be a doctor.”

Hal’s eyes fixed on mine, an intensity in his gaze that I didn’t understand. “I was not like you when I was young. I didn’t care for anything or anyone but myself.”

His words struck a strange chord. “You can’t be much older than me.”

He frowned, that line pressing into his forehead again. “I think … I think I might be very old indeed.”

I thought again of my scars, entirely erased in the worlds of the books. What would Hal think of me, if he truly saw what I was? What would I think of him?

I took his hand, smoothing my thumb across his skin. I couldn’t imagine him as an old man. I didn’t want to. His eyes met mine as he lifted his free hand to my face. He loosed my mask, let it fall into my lap, then grazed his thumb across my cheek. Heat poured through me. I was caught in that moment, fixed, unmovable.

“Shall we dance?” he asked me softly. “One last gavotte before midnight?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

He pulled me upright and led me back out onto the floor, his hands warm and trembling around me. I didn’t notice Mokosh, openly staring at us from within her partner’s arms. I didn’t notice Adella, ripping off her masque and throwing herself at her betrothed’s feet, begging him to loose her from their engagement.

There was only Hal, his breath in my hair, his chest close to mine.

We danced, until the ballroom shook and fire exploded into the night, and an army of men armed with bayonet-fitted rifles burst in, death flashing in their eyes.

ILEFT THE LIBRARY,STILLwearing the gold dress, my ears ringing with music and the incongruous clash of battle. The corridor outside was dim and earthen, lit only with orange torches that were beginning to detach from the walls—almost midnight. I walked quickly, instructing the house to bring me the shortest way back to the bedroom.

I rounded a few corners and it was there: the carved red door, the lantern growing a tail and floating away.

I didn’t hear the wolf’s step behind me, just his voice: “It suits you.”

I turned to find him watching me, his head cocked to one side, and I fingered the skirt of the gown self-consciously.

“Did you have a lovely evening?”

Guilt bit sharp—I’d forgotten him again, in all the excitement. I stepped through the door and the wolf came after me, nudging it shut with his nose.

“Are you going to forgive me for pulling you into that book-mirror?” I said quietly.

“You think I have not forgiven you?”

“You don’t even want to look at me.”

His amber eyes peered up into mine. “The year slips away. Already I find I cannot bear it.”

“Bear what, Wolf?”

“The thought of being parted from you.”

“Why? I’ve done nothing to help you.”

“You tend the house as deftly as I have ever seen. And you—and you have been a good friend.”