My legs won’t work.
Nothing works.
The cold is inside me now, deep in my bones, shutting everything down system by system, and I’m trying to reach for the edge of the ice but my body won’t obey. My fingers scrape against the surface and slide off. The water pulls at me, patient and heavy, and I’m so tired.
So tired.
Mom’s going to be so upset—
Strong hands grab me.
Hauling me up and out of the water in one violent motion, and then there’s air and cold wind and Veil’s face above mine, those blue eyes blazing with something between fury and terror.
He’s shouting, but I can’t hear the words over the roaring in my ears.
“—BREATHE, damn you, BREATHE—”
I want to tell him I’m trying. I want to tell him the boy is safe. I want to tell him a lot of things, but nothing comes out, and the darkness is creeping in at the edges of my vision, and the last thing I see before everything goes black is his face.
Those blue eyes.
Still blazing.
****
FIVE DAYS.
Five days she’d been avoiding him, and Veil had noticed every single one.
He noticed how she arrived at breakfast early enough to finish before he came down. How she kept her eyes on her clipboard whenever he entered a room. How she found sudden urgent reasons to check inventory or adjust lighting or consult with vendors the moment he appeared in her vicinity.
He noticed, and it grated.
Not because he wanted her attention. He didn’t. He was the Duke of Veilcourt, and he did not chase women who treated him like furniture. He did not care that she’d never replied to his text. He did not lie awake wondering why she’d pulled away in the study, or what she’d been thinking when she wrote “This is inappropriate” on a piece of paper, or what it meant that she’d looked at him with those wide dark eyes like she was fighting herself and losing.
He didn’t care about any of that.
Obviously.
And if he happened to notice that she’d rearranged her entire schedule to avoid crossing paths with him, that was simply observation. The same way he’d observe a change in weather patterns or a shift in market trends. Neutral. Detached. Entirely without feeling.
His mother, predictably, saw right through him.
‘She’s been very busy with the exhibition,’ Geena had signed to him at dinner three nights ago, her expression carefully innocent. ‘I’ve barely seen her myself.’
Veil had not taken the bait.
‘You could always ask her to join us for dinner,’ Geena continued. ‘She eats alone in her room most evenings. It doesn’t seem right.’
‘She’s free to eat wherever she likes, Mother.’
Geena had given him a long look. The kind that said she knew exactly what he was doing and found it both amusing and exasperating.
‘You’re being childish,’ she signed.
‘I’m being professional.’
‘You’re being proud.’
