"Fine." His eyes were fixed on me through the mask, dark and unguarded in a way I’d never seen. "I should have told you what I was before I ever touched you."
Yes, you bastard, you should have.“What’s done is done.”
“I tried.” His hand tightened against my back, then released. “Every time I opened my mouth to tell you, the words died in my throat.”
So you were a coward.“You have five seconds left.”
His jaw ticked. "The night I brought you to court, Rhiannon pulled me aside. She wanted to keep the truth of my past for later." His voice dropped. "A knife to use if she ever needed it."
I’d known she had controlled him, but not how. I kept my eyes on his. "How did she do it?”
“Her magic. Air.” He swallowed, as though reliving the sensation. “She bound my breath. Any time I tried to speak the truth of my past—to anyone—my lungs refused. The words wouldn’t come. They couldn’t come.”
All those silences. The way he’d start to say something and stop. The way he’d look at me like he was suffocating. Hehadbeen… on her magic.
“That night,” I said quietly. “Before we?—”
“I tried, Eury.” His voice was rough, barely above a whisper. “I swear to you. I tried.”
“Excuse me,” a voice said from beside us. The slender man who’d approached the queens’ table just before Dorian had stolen me away. Kane, Iseris had called him. “May I cut in?”
“No,” Dorian growled.
Kane’s blond head tilted, and a smile appeared beneath his hawk-nosed mask. “I’m afraid I have to insist. You’ve already had one dance with the autumn queen.”
“This one’s only just started,” Dorian said—but even as the words left him, the music shifted. A new melody. A new dance.
We’d been so lost in each other, we hadn’t noticed the first one end.
Neither of us moved. His hand still pressed against my back. Mine still rested in his. The heat of him, the steadiness—I hadn’t felt that in weeks. I wanted to stay here. I wanted to know the rest.
But I could feel eyes on us. The whole room, watching. Waiting to see what the Sylvanwild queen would do.
In the courtyard with Liora, she’d also told me I must accept dances with other men, as many as I had time for.A man who’s touched your hand, who’s touched your waist, my beautiful girl, is a man under you. Three minutes in exchange for power.
Three minutes.
I held Dorian’s gaze a moment longer. Then, slowly, I pulled my hand from his.
“Of course, ser.”
Dorian’s jaw went hard. He didn’t move, even as I stepped away and set my hand into Kane’s. Clammy fingers touched mine. I felt Dorian’s gaze on my back as Kane set his hand at my waist, and the two of us set off into a livelier dance.
Dorian dropped back into the crowd. But every time I turned he was there, his eyes on me like he would sear holes into the man dancing with me. The feeling was almost palpable; the more I tried to keep my attention off him, the more I seemed to find him in the crowd.
I couldn’t help feeling I’d betrayedhim.
Kane smiled down at me. “You’re very good, Your Grace.”
The old me would have scoffed and made a joke. But tonight was delicate, crucial. I lifted my chin, lips curling. “Youare very good, my lord.”
I might have set the moon, for how his eyes lit.
Liora was right. A man only needed to touch you for three minutes and you could step on him anywhere you liked.
When we came around the room again, I searched for Dorian, but he was gone from his spot. I turned my head, searched the crowd as we danced, but I couldn’t find him in it.
That was when I glimpsed Finch pressing his way through the throng toward a side door. The door was open, and Dorian’s onyx cloak disappeared through it before the boy pushed in after him.