“Don’t touch her,” says Ronan, but Zara ignores him too, and we’re both overcome by another wave of whatever this is before he can push her away from me.
“Her face is flushed. Her heart rate and breathing are fast. What did you eat? It could be an allergy you share.”
“It’s not a fucking allergy,” says Ronan. “It’s my magic. We’re fine. Everyone out except Sylvie.Now.”
I’ve never heard his tone so severe. It does the trick though—despite their concerns, everyone leaves us alone in the antechamber.
The moment they’re gone, it hits again. Gods, it’s like he’s actively kissing me even though we’re across the room from each other. My entire body is pulsing with heat and energy. And primal, desperate need.
I rush over to him, but he holds his hands up to stop me. “Wait. Wait,” he says, catching his breath. “Give it a second. It’ll pass. I can do this.”
“What’s going on?” I ask once my head finally clears. “Are you doing this somehow?”
“I think so,” he admits. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how it’s happening, not exactly. But I think it’s to do with you being able to feel me. Whether I’m projecting my power or it’s something in yours, I don’t know. But I think—”
He stops and looks around the room. “No mirrors or looking glasses in here. There’s one in my chambers—”
Fuck, this is the worst wave yet. I don’t merely feel like I’m kissing him, I feel like I’m in bed with him. My body isaching. I’m so wet, I’m glad I’m standing. It would have pooled beneath my dress if I was still sitting down.
“Not there,” he says, forcefully shaking something out of his head. “Have you ever held up a mirror to another mirror?”
“Sure,” I say. My servants do it to show me the back of my hair sometimes.
“Do you know how it looks like it goes on forever? Repeating over and over again, into infinity?”
“Yes…”
“It’s like that, I think, only when we’re feeling the same thing at the same time. You feel it, and I feel you feeling it. And you feel me feeling you feeling it. And I feel you feeling me feeling you feeling it. And so on.”
“Oh, gods,” I say. “I was just thinking about yesterday, when we were in here—”
And there it is again. I reach for him this time, and he comes extremely close to taking me in his arms—
“No,” he says, taking a step back from me. “As much as I want to, and gods,I want to, no. I felt you this morning. Your uncertainty, your indecision. I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret.”
I close my eyes, trying to focus on his words and not the pull of his body. “I know I want this too. It’s just…everything else…”
“I know,” he says.
“Perhaps we should spend a bit of time apart. Just to keep things…clearer.”
His face falls, and I can feel the pain of his disappointment, his longing—our joint disappointment, our joint longing—reverberate between us. It’s sudden and poignant and heartbreakingly sad.
“Fuck,” I say.
“Fuck,” he agrees.
I don’t want to leave, and he doesn’t want me to go. But the echoing desire to stay is exactly why I must leave him.
I can never work out what I need to do with our feelings consuming my every thought, even if they weren’t being heightened by each other.
“Sylvie?” he asks when I’m at the door.
“Yes?”
He doesn’t say anything else, but I feel something deep pass between us. Something I don’t dare name.
I nod once, and I open the door.
