Page 44 of Legacy Found

Luke sees me coming, and Soren and Ander turn too, and I smile. "Want to dance?"

Silence.

I wait. Luke looks genuinely surprised — and then that small, amused expression I've learned to recognize in the arena starts to surface.

"What?" I grin. "Afraid I'll step on you? I've gotten a lot better at footwork. Someone's been drilling me."

Luke's mouth opens like he's about to answer—

"Unbelievable."

I turn. Natasha, of course, immaculate in cream silk, looking at me like I've spat on the floor.

"You do not," she says, cold and precise, loud enough to carry, "ask a prince to dance. Princes extend invitations. You wait to be chosen. But then, I suppose someone like you wouldn't know that." Her smile turns to a blade. "Perhaps if you spent less energy throwing yourself at the princes' attention and more learning your place, you'd stop humiliating yourself in front of the entire academy."

And that — that lands wrong in me, hot and immediate.

I keep my voice level. "I didn't throw myself at a prince's attention." I hold her eyes. "I asked my friend to dance."

The word drops into the quiet like a stone.

Because I can feel, instantly, that calling a prince my friend is somehow just as outrageous as asking him to dance — maybe more. Luke looks openly amused now. Soren and Ander very much do not. And Natasha's carefully composed face goes tight with fury, and she opens her mouth to escalate—

"Jessica." Jon's voice, smooth and easy, appears at my elbow. "Might I borrow you for a moment?"

He steers me gently to the edge of the room, and the second we're clear of the crowd I groan. "What did I do now?"

"You asked a royal heir to dance," Jon says, with the patience of a man who saw this coming from across the room. "At a traditional Great House event, the heirs extend the invitations. They are not approached."

I stare at him. "Of course they're not."

His mouth twitches. He's trying very hard not to laugh.

"Is there a book?" I demand. "A secret encyclopedia — Things Jessica Is Not Allowed To Do — because I would genuinely like a copy. I'd read it. I'd highlight it."

"This," Jon says, losing the battle with his smile, "is precisely what I was afraid of when I brought the six of you into this world. These traditions are so deeply ingrained that the people raised in them don't even think to explain them. They can't imagine not knowing." He shakes his head. "It isn't your failing. It's mine."

"Was Luke offended?" I ask, because that's the part I actually care about.

Jon glances across the room toward the princes. "No." A beat, dry as anything. "I sincerely doubt Luke was the offended party."

I follow his gaze. Luke is still watching me, and Natasha is still radiating fury beside him, and I get it. Ah. Natasha. The traditionalists. Possibly the other two princes. Not Luke.

Fantastic.

Before I can ask about it, I catch him looking at my dress again — the color, specifically — with that same strange stillness.

"You keep doing that," I say. "Looking at my dress like it did something."

Jon's expression closes over, smooth and unreadable. "It's a striking color," he says. "You don't see it anymore." And that's all he says, and he changes the subject before I can push.

I drift back to the edge of the dance floor, and Torres finds me almost immediately.

"You okay?" he asks.

"Apparently I've violated another law nobody told me about," I say. "You can't ask a prince to dance. They summon you. Like a subpoena."

Torres huffs a laugh. "Yeah, I've been in this world a lot longer than you and I still don't know any this aristocratic shit. It's not for people like us." And that — that's exactly what I needed to hear, because he's an outsider too, still learning the rules himself, and standing next to someone who's just as lost makes the whole hall feel a little less like a minefield.