“Forgive me. I couldn’t resist.”
“You scared me,” I say, pressing a hand to my chest.
“Watching people is risky,” he replies. “They have a habit of noticing.”
“Not in a church,” I say.
“Especiallyin a church,” he raises an eyebrow.
I exhale, then laugh, and walk over.
“May I sit?”
“Of course.”
I take the seat beside him. The wood is cool through my dress. For a moment, we sit in silence, the chapel breathing around us.
“What brings you here?” I ask.
“I come here when the noise gets too loud,” he says. “Stone listens better than people.”
I glance at him. He’s smiling—not guarded, not ironic. Forthe first time, I notice dimples, softening his face.
“Come,” he says, rising smoothly. “I want to show you something.”
He clears a small circle on the stone floor, then lies down with the ease of someone unconcerned with appearances.
“What in the devil’s mercy are you doing?” I ask with a laugh.
“Join me.”
Is that a challenge in his eyes? Is he trying to gauge whether I am too good to lie on the floor with him?
I hesitate only a moment before lowering myself beside him. The stone is cold against my shoulders. I look up—and lose my breath.
The dome rises impossibly high above us, painted with figures and motion and light. From here, the building feels alive, spinning slowly, drawing my gaze inward and upward at once. I have the strange sensation of falling up into it.
“It’s astonishing,” I murmur.
“I know,” he says. “I like seeing things from angles they weren’t designed for.”
I turn my head toward him. “Do you pray like this?”
“No.”
The answer is immediate.
“You don’t pray?”
He turns to look at me, eyes dark, amused. “God doesn’t listen to prayers. He listens to actions. The devil, on the other hand, listens very carefully—but only to his friends.”
“That’s a dangerous belief,” I say softly. “At court.”
“I don’t serve the court.”
“You serve the King.”
He smiles, slow and intimate. “No. I serve only one person.”
