Page 48 of The House of the Red Balconies

“You’re too young to have stiff knees,” said the governor jovially.

“Nevertheless. And I’m off to bed.”

Loukianos laughed. “Too young for that, too.”

They walked out onto the gallery together, and Loukianos did not offer Zo his arm because Zo did his best not to look like he needed it. On the gallery they parted ways, and Zo waited until the governor was halfway down the outer stairs and not looking in his direction before he took hold of the railing to steady himself as he walked around to the back stairs.

The back stairs were in total darkness. There was a window in the stairwell which would have let in some moonlight, but it had shutters which someone had closed, and Zo couldn’t even make out the outline of where it was. There was no way he could descend the stairs without a light.

He wanted to be in his bed, in his room with his door locked. He didn’t want to walk all the way back along the gallery and meet someone else coming out of the sitting room to say, “Zo, are you really Prince Whatever like that man said?”

He sat down on the top step of the back stairs and put his head in his hands. Presently, a flicker out of the corner of his eye told him that someone was coming down the gallery with a light. Zo looked up wearily. It was Hylas.

He came to the head of the stairs and stopped.

“May I join you?” he said.

“What, here?”

“It’s where you are.”

“Of course.” Zo shrugged.

Hylas set down the candle he was carrying and sat, not on the top step beside Zo but lower down. At Zo’s feet.

He looked up at Zo, and the candlelight shone on his faded red hair and sparkled in his pale eyes. His smile was as warm as the flame’s light.

“Of course you’re a prince,” he said, his voice low. “I feel as if I should have known.”

“I should have told you.”

“You could of course have told me at any time. I would have done with the knowledge only what you wanted. I hope you’re not sorry for me to know now.”

“No. No. But you shouldn’t have found out that way. I didn’t tell you because it doesn’t matter. It’s not an important thing.”

Hylas nodded. “Of course it doesn’t matter. I understand that. Except … ” He looked up at Zo, and there was something in his eyes, a tense kind of joy. “Could we let it matter, a little?”

“How? What do you mean?” There was something new here, something thrilling. He couldn’t say what it was.

“I could almost believe that this is what I was made a commoner for. I should not say that—the suffering my family went through because of me, I can never forget that. But it is in the past, and I have paid for it. Zo, will you let me serve you?”

“Will I … Hylas, you do, actually. All these things you’ve done for me … ”

“I know. Will you let me keep serving you? And maybe … ” He put out a hand toward Zo’s hand and very gently, tentatively, laced their fingers together. “In new ways?”

Zo gasped and squeezed Hylas’s hand tight. “Holy God, yes. Hylas, I thought you would never ask.”

Hylas hadn’t thought beyond that moment. He certainly wasn’t prepared to act, now, on what he’d just proposed, but he realized that it was expected of him. Well, of course it was.

As he’d sat and listened to Zo and Loukianos talk, the absurd thought that kept rattling around in his head was: He’s a prince. I should give him what he wants.

It was absurd because whatever Zo was a prince of, it had never mattered to Hylas, even in his former life. It certainly didn’t matter here, far from Zo’s homeland, and it changed nothing between them. And it was absurd because he knew—he thought he knew—what Zo wanted. He wanted their friendship to expand beyond tea and buns and their shared garden; he wanted something from Hylas that Hylas could easily, joyfully give. Of course he should have it.

“Then would you like me to give you a kiss?” he whispered.

“I would, very much.”

Hylas nodded. He reached up to touch Zo’s face with the tips of his fingers, as if he needed to do this to guide himself to Zo’s lips. He was shocked by how intimate it felt. He moved the edge of his thumb over Zo’s cheek.