Page 97 of To Dance with Death

I feel him melt underneath my touch.

Today has changed something for the both of us. But I am careful not to crack it, fragile as it is. So I resist the urge to climb into his lap. Burrow into him and never let go.

When I stand, the rush is fast, and my knees fail, my vision blinking black. I feel myself being scooped up, carried. He wraps a towel around me, then grabs one for himself, too. The room, despite the modest hearth, is cold, and so when he lays me down in bed, he curls around my shivering form.

I let him, welcoming his warmth, the feel of his weight. His arms, heavy and sculpted as they are, remind me of how safe I am.

Yes, I feel safe with him. I always have—even when I shouldn’t.

“Say you will stay with me in Morta’s Lair,” Anton says against my neck. “Vow it.”

“You wish me to die?” I ask incredulously.

“Quite the contrary. The both of us can grow old there and accept Moranya’s hand when the time finally comes.” He says it sleepily, the last words fading into a yawn. “What more do you need?”

I can’t sacrifice the world for my own happiness. But my mind latches on to one particular phrase.

The both of us can grow old there.

“You wish to spend eternity with me?” I breathe.

His breath ghosts across my jaw, his murmur a low rumble I feel underneath my skin.

Doesn’t he know that’s love?

I curl further into him, a new hope fluttering in my heart.

Bells chime throughout Ansa the next morning, like a symphony from the heavens.

The sky is pastel with the sunrise, the crescent rocking softly with the river as the craft emerges from underneath the theater, Anton standing by the prow. He waits until the end of the line, then veers us back on track behind the rest.

This morning, I woke in his arms with his breath on my neck, his offer still dangling behind the lids of my eyes.

Stay with me in Morta’s Lair.

I can’t, not like this. But he feels like he’s becomingmineagain. Like Moranya’s clutches are loosening, if only a little. Like all the places she hardened within him by stripping his memories are softening beneath my palms the way I might work loose a clump of sand. When we forced ourselves to rouse and face the day, we dressed in the clothes Aimes had provided: Anton in a fine linen tunic and leather trousers, complete with a hooded, nondescript cloak, and me in a casual, pale pink cotton bustier with cinchedsleeves and matching skirt. To the idle observer, we are upper-class patrons, our clothes fine but not enough to draw attention.

I also managed to slip the pendant and the pages back into my bustier while Anton wasn’t looking.

After, we bid Aimes farewell, but not before he once again dropped into a bow.

“We wish for your return, Sire. All of us.”

I hadn’t missed the way Anton flinched. The slight sheen of guilt that even now—even here—still lingers. He misses Ansa. He misses his people.

He misses things he doesn’t even yet fully understand.

Now we navigate a path around a bend, the city waking street by street. As the buildings taper off and we slide underneath a final bridge, the western side of the palace comes into view, as does the storm far behind it—swaths of purple smeared with rain.

Tomorrow the Syndicate meets in Ansa.

“We will have to sneak through the western wing to get back to the chapel,” Anton says, helping me off the boat, the both of us leaping in sync onto the dock—which is still empty this early in the morning.

But his walls are down, his heart within reach. If I can stall, get him to spend time in his palace, he’ll realize thatthisis where he belongs. He can be here tomorrow, for the meeting. If that fails, I stew on what I might say, because I have to convince him.

He takes me around the palace wall where the river sweeps farther out and a lush garden sprawls wide and thick with greenery. It’s almost unkempt, but purposefully so. Wild, with an array of flora that aren’t indigenous to Miridran. This, too, reminds me of the Sky Garden, the domed glass expanse above the sea where Anton had vegetation carted in from across the north—trumpet flowers from Razam, bright violet and the size of my hand; carpets of gold anthem glories from Zar that rise on stems tall as my knees. Floral thickets hug the walkway, the draping of night willows an arch above our heads.

“What are those?” I ask, referring to the baubles that hang from the boughs at intervals overhead.