“I prefer to think of it as using what the Saints gave me,” he said with a grin. “Everything about you makes me want to put my best foot forward, sometimes quite literally.”
Smiling, I ducked my head in an effort to conceal the flush upon my cheeks. His hand found a lower hold at my back—still chastened by propriety. Yet his fingers curled as though he could not prevent himself from drawing me closer. Heat gathered beneath my gown where he touched me.
He bent his head, hesitating only a heartbeat.
His thumb brushed the edge of my jaw, tilting my face toward his.
And he kissed me.
The press of his lips was unhurried, deliberate. The manner of kiss that claimed without conquering. Wordlessly communicating, “You are mine to stand beside.”His mouth moved against mine as though we were the only two souls in this crowded, glittering hall.
Gasps and murmurs sounded.
A fan snapped shut.
I cared not.
When I opened my eyes, Mav was looking at me as though I were the rising sun breaking over a storm-tossed sea.
Realization struck, the clang of a bell.
It was not that it had been centuries since I had felt this way.
I hadneverfelt this way before.
My vocabulary lacked a word for what he was to me. I onlyknew that when he reached for me, I would already be reaching back.
Mav offered his hand anew, and we remained—for one dance, and another, and another beyond counting.
Vesper waltzed by on the shoulder of a baffled nobleman. Branrir and Thistle twirled past us with surprising vigor for their ages. Between dances, Mav sprinkled small affections: a kiss upon my hand, a stray tendril brushed behind my ear. He murmured something about my beauty outshining the chandeliers; I called him ridiculous.
As Mav spun me, my eye caught the platform. The king had barely moved all night. Now, his posture shifted. His head tilted as his gaze sharpened, not upon the throng—uponme. A chill skittered down my spine.
When at last we returned to our table—flushed, breathless—I reached for my mask. “I need a moment,” I murmured, slipping the mask free so cooler air could touch my skin. Relief came at once.
I lifted my eyes, and my gaze collided with the king’s.
My stomach dropped.
He regarded me with more than curiosity or idle intrigue. It struck as recognition. My blood ran cold. The king rose and descended the stairs of the platform. The crowd parted to let him through. My heartbeat tripped in time with his steps.
Thistle saw it first. “Um, is the king walking towardus?”
Branrir straightened. “Why would he be walking toward us?”
Vesper balanced on the rim of a plate of fish. “Did you accidentally Twilight him?”
Something in the set of his shoulders struck a chord of memory so deep my breath faltered. I had seen this walk before—in torchlight, in shadow, in the last night of my former life. My body remembered even if my mind refused to name it.
“Quinn?” Mav placed a comforting hand on my lower back, concern lacing his tone. “What is it?”
Words failed me. The closer the king drew to where we were seated, the more recognition sank deeper into my skin. He arrived beside our table in mere moments.
“Quinnève?” The name left him not as a question, but as a recollection.
The ballroom receded. My pulse roared in my ears, muffling the orchestra. The room tilted violently, chandeliers swinging like pendulums in a doomed clock.
My lungs seized.
