Page 45 of Legacy Found

He looks toward the dance floor. Then he offers me his hand.

"Well," he says, mouth curving. "I know I'm allowed to ask."

"Are you sure?" I say. "You want to risk it? I'm a known rule-breaker now."

"100%," he says honestly. "I would love to dance with you."

"Perfect."

I take his hand, and he pulls me out onto the floor, and it turns out Torres can dance—of course he can. He has a fighter’s grace, aware of every inch of space. And it’s easy. He keeps me laughing, keeps me close, and somewhere in the middle of it I stop thinking about invisible rules and just notice him—the warmth of his hand at my back, the way he’s looking at me, the fact that this isn’t two friends dancing anymore and we both know it. This is real. It’s been building between us for weeks, and for the length of one song, I let myself just feel it.

When the song ends and we drift back toward the others, Luke intercepts us.

His eyes flick to Torres, brief and unreadable, then come back to me.

"Don't be late tomorrow," he says, easy.

I know exactly what he means. "I won't."

"You said that last week."

"That was one time."

"You were twelve minutes late."

I laugh — and I don't notice, at first, that the conversation around us has gone quiet. That people are listening.

"Late for what?" Soren says.

I glance at him. Luke goes very, very still.

And I answer before I understand that this was apparently classified information. "Combat lessons. He's been helping me train — every afternoon, in the arena." I shrug. "I have a hesitation problem. He's fixing it."

The reaction is instant.

Soren's head turns to Luke, slow, disbelieving. Ander's expression drops into something distinctly unhappy. And somewhere off to my left I hear Natasha's sharp little intake of breath, which means she heard every word, which means the entire hall is about to hear it too. The whispers are already starting, that familiar hiss spreading table to table.

I look around at all of it — Soren staring at Luke, Ander glowering, Natasha vibrating with fresh outrage — and I throw up my hands.

"Oh, come on." I gesture between the three princes. "Is that against the rules too?"

And Luke — finally — laughs. Out loud, real, surprised out of him, and it only makes everyone stare harder.

I retreat to where Sophia is waiting, and she has clearly watched the entire disaster unfold and is having the time of her life.

"Don't," I say, dropping into the chair beside her.

"I didn't say anything," Sophia says, the picture of innocence.

"Your face is saying plenty."

She takes a slow, delighted sip of her drink, glances toward the princes, then back at me. "So. Just to recap. In one evening, you asked a prince to dance, called him your friend to a room full of Great House nobles, danced with Torres, and then casually announced to the entire academy that Prince Luke has been secretly meeting you alone every single afternoon."

I close my eyes. "When you say it all in a row like that, it sounds bad."

Sophia grins into her glass.

"I think," she says, "it sounds fucking fantastic."