Still hand in hand with Kai, her aunt mouthed something Adeline couldn’t make out between the heads of the other dancers, though the general gist seemed to be;Is everything alright?She nodded, indulged in the briefest moment under the warm weight of Kai’s gaze, then returned her attention to her dance partner. He offered a grim smile.
“Your aunt is worried I will upset you again,” he said briskly. “I unsettled you, that first day.”
Adeline blinked, fighting back a full wince. She felt her eyes dart away uncomfortably and caught Eleni’s narrowed gaze on her, before Kai twirled them both away. Her own gaze slingshotted back to her grandfather.
“A bit,” she admitted—then, when his brow sagged, she hurried to add, “Only because I didn’t want to disappoint you, Papou. I hate to think I’ve forgotten my own father’s customs—”
But Papou cut her off with a well-timed twirl, and when she spun back to him, a little dizzily, he shook his head, lips thin.
“It is not about a custom,Adeleni. Just an old man reminiscing.”
“Reminiscing aboutwhat, exactly? Flowers?”
“Ahn.Just so.”
Adeline tilted her head, but the old man did not seem to notice; he was frowning—quite irritably—at something beyond her. With a glance over her shoulder, she found Eleni once again watching them with that same narrowed gaze before she pulled Kai to a full stop. Papou quickened his feet, and Adeline nearly stumbled to keep up; the musicians kept a leisurely beat that allowed the dancers around them to chat, but in her grandfather’s arms, she found herself spinning a half-step too quickly through the rustling skirts of nearby courtiers. When they slowed, having crossed half the garden, Papou relented to a static turn in the grass. A nycta bush loomed behind her grandfather’s sloping shoulders, vivid even in the blanched light of the moon.
Reminiscing about bloody flowers, indeed.
They weresurroundedby flowers, within the palace and without. What was it aboutthisflower that had him so perturbed? She watched the blooms spin past as they moved, pink and purple nycta dancing in the breeze, white roses peeking over the hedges of the Silver Meadow. Adeline looked at her grandfather, who’d been quietly watchingherwatch the gardens.
“Whataboutthe flowers?” Adeline prompted, as though there’d been no interruption—as though he hadn’t half-carried her away from her aunt’s suspicious gaze with a speed that defied the human ageing process. He had an ulterior motive, and if he wanted to say something, Goddess above, let him bloody say it.
Papou sighed.
“Just a little party trick you picked up on your last visit,agameni. A talent of yours I—”
“Father.” Eleni appeared at their side. Her smile might have been bright had she not been so breathless. She’d plainly sprinted across the garden, and her eyes, rather deliberately fixed on Papou, were wide with alarm. “How lovely to see you enjoying a dance. Might you spare me this next one? I’m sure the king would be happy to take your place.”
Papou’s lip curled sourly beneath his nose, but he released Adeline’s hand and reached for Eleni’s.
“We were talking about Adeline’s last summer in Dhalias.”
Eleni’s lip was nearly a twin to her father’s. “I’m sure you were,” she said, as though this was the very last thing they should have been discussing. “And happily, you and I will haveplentyof nostalgia to share on the dancefloor. Shall we?”
Papou grumbled a single word in Dhaliaan and let his daughter lead him away. Eleni offered an unreadable expression over her shoulder as she went; her tight smile could have been anything from apology to discomfort, but it was too fleeting to tell.
When Eleni turned her back, Adeline followed suit and found herself standing face to face with Kai. He smiled, hand already extended.
“You asked me to save you a dance.”
She placed her hand in his. “That I did.”
It was easy, the way his hand curved around her waist to rest on the small of her back; just a few months ago, he’d have hesitated to lay a finger on her. Now, he tugged her closer without so much as a stuttered breath—maybe she was losing her touch.
“You are so incredibly beautiful,” he said in her ear.
Or maybe not.
“Thank you. I just threw on the first thing I found, you know?”
“Did you, now?”
His voice dropped, and Adeline felt it in the pit of her stomach, low and simmering.
“Mm-hmm,” she hummed, light as she could manage.
“Interesting, then, that the first thing you found was this particular dress.”
