Then the oddest thing happens. He reaches for my hand. Myrighthand! I release my hold, but instead of nudging me backward to indicate I should let go—which is what I expect—he catches my palm, lightly squeezes, and pulls my arms together so they continue to wrap around him.
“It’s safer,” he whispers.
I don’t know what to think. No one touches my right arm on accident. My parents don’t intentionally avoid it per se. But still, I’ve become accustomed to using my left hand for everything. Any contact with anyone and I offer my Godly arm, not the naked and alien-looking flesh. Enough awkwardness and bullying from other children taught me long ago it’s a monstrosity. I still think it’s one of the main reasons I wasn’t sent to the academy to learn magic with Jatin and other royal children.
Yet Kalyan touches me like it’s nothing. The first time he helped pick me up and the first time we had given our respects on the Naupure stairs he had taken my right hand, but that had been an accident on my part and he hadn’t yet known about my Touch. But tonight, it’s as if he saw my arm, my insecurity and my pain, and was making it clear that…
Gods, this is your fiancé’s guard! He carried you and now you’re letting him squeeze your right hand?But my body leaps for joy like it’s escaped the palace for the first time. That one simple gesture felt safe, and right, and more intimate than I could possibly imagine. My palm still tingles with the pressure and heat of his fingers squeezing mine.
I can’t let him know what it’s doing to me, though. “Safer because you are that bad of a flier?”
The skyglider lurches and I hang on for dear life. I let out a yelp too. I’m not proud.
“Yeah, I’m not too good.” His voice slices with sarcasm. He’s messing with me.
“You know, I can take this thing over,” I say.
“Not without me letting you.”
He’s right. It’s grueling to take over a skyglider unless the original flier’s magic fails or they allow it. But…is this flirting? Is he flirting with me? His tone is the kind filled with secret smiles. I shimmy and twist forward to try to grasp his expression.
I catch his eyes.
“Drop over there, in that square.” I gesture and the skyglider dives. The world tumbles from under us and wind springs up as we plummet. “Gods, not literally.” My fingers fan over his stomach and the momentum of the dive slides my whole body against his. That’s when Kalyan’s stomach flexes and not in some display of his core muscles. He coils in pain.
As soon as my feet hit cobblestones, I scramble to the ground.
He’s laughing. “Sorry.”
I don’t join in his merriment. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His laughing eyes widen. “How…how did you find out?”
“Gods, it’s obvious when you make me hang on to you like that.”
Kalyan steps over his skyglider and in a quick snap it’s shortened and hooked back onto his belt. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you immediately. Right when I found out, which was only about an hour ago, I—”
I walk forward, cutting off his rambling. He’s so used to not having pink magic he doesn’t even know when he should ask for help. “It’s okay. Just let me see it now.” I glance down at his stomach.
He takes a giant step back. “Wait, what? What do you want to see?”
“The bruises on your stomach.”
“The bruises on my…” He chokes on his laughter. “Those are fine. I don’t need pink magic.”
“Are you sure?” This must be how he felt, wanting to check out my arm earlier.
“Yeah, stop trying to undress me, Smoke.”
“I wasn’t…that’s not what…” I clamp my mouth shut. I’m falling for his antics again. I need to get better at not letting him get to me. “The place is this way,” I say as deadpan as possible, and turn.
I’m pleasantly surprised the bar’s inhabitants don’t want to rip Kalyan’s and my heads off. Respectable members of society line the wall, not black-clad Vencrin sailors or drug dealers. But I forgot to account for the fact that thanks to our ripped black clothing, that’s what Kalyan and I look like. For blood’s sake, Kalyan has someone else’s blood splattered on his pants. How did I not notice that before?
I think it says something about me that I want to cast on my red mask and yell boo as the third suspicious set of eyes takes me in and then drops away. Or, even better than boo,Hello, everyone, I might rule the country one day.Imagine that.
The warmest greeting comes from the candlelit lamps dripping from the ceiling and the yards of fabric draped between them. The second-warmest greeting comes from the gleaming tabletops, oiled by thousands of hands.
“Corner,” Kalyan and I say at the same time. We share a glance. Is he as paranoid as I am, or does he know his blood-splattered pants need to be hidden from this bewildered crowd? As I slip into the corner seat, it feels nice to press my back against the cushion and survey this glowing marshmallow kingdom of laughter and drunkenness.
