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I keep my arm around him.

“You know,” I say after a while, “if you get any more tragic, Dimitri’s going to start writing poetry about you.”

That earns me the faintest flicker in his eyes.

I continue, because I have to keep a thread of something moving between us before he sinks again. “And if that happens, I’ll have to kill him.”

Alexei’s mouth twitches. “Please do. He is getting more annoying by the day,” he says.

“Gladly.”

We sit in silence for a moment after that. Then Alexei says, without looking at me, “You don’t have to hover.”

“Excuse you. I’m not hovering.”

His brow lifts a fraction. He sighs and adds, “Thank you.”

I look at him, but he still isn’t looking at me.

Which is probably good, because if he did, I might say something unbearably sincere and then we’d both have to die.

So instead I huff and tighten my arm around his shoulders. “Don’t mention it.”

He nods. From the doorway, Dimitri’s voice cuts back into the room before things can get any softer.

“If you two start having feelings without me, I’m going to be hurt.”

Alexei lets out the smallest breath that might almost be a laugh.

Dimitri reenters carrying his fresh drink and looking obnoxiously pleased with himself for having restored some fraction of life to the room, as if he did all the work.

I leave my arm where it is anyway.

And Alexei, terrifying, immovable Alexei, looks like he’s already half buried with his boyfriend.

Kento

When I step across the threshold, the scent of damar varnish catches me off guard. I stop in the entryway and realize the studio has been entirely remade.

The last time Ilya was in this room, he tore through it. He shattered a dozen ceramic wash jars and snapped half my sable brushes in two. Anyone else would’ve been dead before the third jar hit the floor. But it was Ilya, so instead I’d found the whole thing strangely endearing. I hadn’t minded then, and I don’t mind now. He can break anything of mine he wants.

“Hi, prince.”

Ilya flinches. He has been leaning over the long supply counter, adjusting a row of graphite pencils. At the sound of my voice, his elbow knocks against the wood, and a Derwent drawing pencil slips from his grip, bouncing before rolling to a stop against the toe of my boot.

He whips around. His emerald eyes narrow into a furious glare, as if I am the one trespassing in his private sanctuary, not the other way around.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he snaps.

I look at him and can’t help the amused chuckle that rumbles in my chest. I bend down, pick up the pencil, and roll it between two fingers.

“I basically live here,” I say mildly, taking a step toward him. “This is my studio.”

“A technicality,” he hisses, crossing his arms over his chest and lifting his chin until his throat is exposed. “You weren’t supposed to be here. You said you were busy tonight!”

“Kenji finished the meeting early.” I stop a foot away from him, letting my gaze wander over his face. He looks slightly windblown. “And what is my prince doing sneaking around in the dark?”

Ilya clears his throat, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. His eyes dart to the supply shelves, then back to my collarbone, refusing to meet my eyes directly.