Without moving my body (because…pins!), I turned my eyes to Brielle to see if she understood the old lady any better.
But Brielle’s face had lit up pink, and she stared at the floor.
And then I realized. “You!” I gasped. “Brielle! He likes you?!”
She looked up, still flushed but with a steel in her eyes. “Yes. But it won’t ever happen.”
Brittania tugged on my dress. “Tsh, tsh,” she scolded in her sing-song tones. “No moving.”
* * *
Dedalus was right. Bylur came to our room during the noble’s nighttime dinner. His swirling black shadows emerged from the wall, rolling as if they were sentient, to announce his presence.
I briefly considered scooping up all the treasures I’d laid out on the bed in a futile attempt to hide them, but I stopped. Bylur already knew about them. Instead, I faced the bed, deliberately avoiding looking at the shadows roiling behind me.
“You’re not at dinner.” Bylur’s tone was somewhere between accusatory and curious.
I shrugged. “I never go to the noble’s dinner.”
“Are you not hungry?”
I shook my head. “I have tea with Orla, Brielle and Sandina every afternoon, and that’s more than enough food for my evening.”
Shadows swirled into my peripheral vision before Bylur set his hands on my shoulders. I tensed, imagining his thoughts as he looked over my shoulder and surveyed the jewels I’d collected.
But he gave my shoulders a soft squeeze, and his voice was not harsh. “What are you doing?”
I blew out a quick breath. “Honestly?” Of course, honestly. That was all he ever wanted. Well, that and breaking his curse. I shook my head, refocusing. “I was trying to decide how to return all of these. I could sneak them back the way I took them, but that feels… disingenuous. Especially for the ones I took from people I consider friends now.”
He didn’t say anything, but his shadows swirled up and nudged my arm like a playful puppy, and he squeezed my shoulders again.
His lack of judgement made me fear his shadows less, and I lifted my hand to the nearest one. It flowed toward me slowly and, when I didn’t pull away, it wrapped around my fingers.
I’d briefly touched them before, but never intentionally, and I’d never… interacted with them. The shadow had a light, feathery feeling, like Rat brushing the tips of his wings across my fingers. “They’re so soft,” I said, more to myself than anyone else, but Bylur answered.
“I can make them soft or hard, as wispy as smoke, or as solid as stone.”
The shadow wrapped around my hand and wound up my arm, spiraling until it reached my elbow andthen retreating back into my hand. “It might seem silly,” I whispered, “but I was terrified of them in the beginning.”
“Not silly,” he whispered back, “most people are. But my shadows will never hurt you,”
I smiled. “Because you promised to protect me.”
He brushed his thumb along the top of my shoulder. “Partly. But there are other reasons too.”
Oh, how I wanted to spin around and look at his face! We were only a couple months into a full year of this, and every time we spoke, I wanted to see him more. I reached up and set a hand on top of his. He let go of my shoulders and wrapped my hand in both of his, sending an excitement and warmth into my heart that nearly broke my resolve to not look at him.
“You probably shouldn’t touch me so much,” I warned.
He froze, the sweet touch of his thumb tracing my palm stopping in its tracks. “Do you… not like it?” His strong voice was more hesitant than I’d ever heard.
“Oh, no,” I reassured him. “I like it a lot. It’s just that I’m very likely to fall in love with you before the year ends, and this will just make it happen faster.”
He remained perfectly still. “Do you not want to fall in love with me?”
My voice caught. “I… I think that’s an unfair question.” He didn’t say anything, so I went on. “You want me to declare potential feelings before you do, before I’ve even seen your face? Can you imagine how I’d feel if you didn’t return the sentiment?”
He huffed an almost-chuckle, and the edges of it just brushed my ear. “That is not something you need to worry about.”
