“NO ONE CAN SEE or hear me. Except you.” Deukalion’s voice enveloped Cassia, light as a feather, deep
as an ocean. “Do give me some credit. I know better than to be seen speaking with you in public,
especially in front of the king.”
The breath rushed out of her, and she couldn’t quite catch it again. In the face of the sudden
Hesperine threat, Knight seemed to think the safest place for her was crushed between him and the
wall. She dared not utter a word to call him off. Everyone was watching.
“No one can hear you two, either,” Deukalion reassured her.
“Het!”
Whining, Knight took his weight off her, then continued to growl insults at Deukalion.
“A pleasure to see you again, as well, Knight,” the Hesperine said amiably. “Don’t worry. If
anyone looks this way, they will see your lady idling against the wall with you as if all is well. They
will notice no details and feel no urge to continue watching. If asked tomorrow what they saw you
doing, they will realize they didn’t notice, for they were too focused on something else.”
“I credit you for such subtlety,” Cassia replied when she had recovered her breath. Why was her
heart still racing? “Will you not teach me this trick? I could certainly use it.”
Deukalion chuckled, and finally she looked up and met his gaze. The well-lit room made his
reflective eyes glow as brightly as they did in the black of night. She had never stood this close to him
before.
“This is madness,” she told him.
“Not at all. Although I do think it unwise to keep it up all night. Eventually my people will notice I
am not, as I told them, on the grounds with the deer.”
She glanced between the Hesperine beside her and his companions across the room. What had he
to gain by making her believe this was their secret, which he kept even from his own people?
Her trust.
No...he must recognize by now her trust was not on the table. He was smart enough to know better.
She did give him credit for that.
“I kept our agreement,” he said. “I have not told anyone I spoke to you.”
The other Hesperines seemed focused on each other and the crowd at large. They didn’t appear to
pay her any particular mind. But she could almost feel the king’s gaze on her. She dared look at him.
He was looking everywhere but at her.
“How much time do we have?” she asked.
“Oh, a few dances before my companions wonder why they can still sense my power in the room,
when I’ve supposedly left. But only a couple of dances before I’m too famished to think straight.”
She stopped herself before she whipped her head around to look at him and instead turned her gaze
slowly. She could not say whether he appeared famished, for she had no idea what a deprived
Hesperine looked like. Now that he mentioned it, however, she thought that if he were human, she
would suggest he pay a visit to the Kyrian infirmary. Despite the plentiful glow of the torches, his
pupils were dilated, and he appeared even paler now than he had by the light of the moons when she
had seen him last. All the color seemed to have drained from his face, even his lips.
But he did not look like someone who might devour the blood in her veins. Not with those large,
soft eyes beneath long, dark lashes. That half-smile on his enviable mouth. And the power to stand
here unseen across the room from the king’s mage.
A shiver moved down Cassia’s spine. She could have told the king he would never be able to
understand, much less control, the Hesperines. But even she had not known just how true that was.
“It would be terribly inconsiderate of me to keep my champion from his evening meal, after he has
so graciously sat through ours. I shall not detain you.”
“Very well, my lady. You have had all day to consider your answer. Will you join me on the
grounds?”
What a strange moment, to be speaking with him surrounded by the entire court, as if he were not
the most condemned of heretics and she were not a concubine’s bastard. As if he were a courtier who
could offer a cordial invitation to escort her on a walk, and she were a lady of consequence at liberty
to accept and enjoy his company with her attendant strolling behind.
What a strange pair they would make in truth, confronting each other by a crumbling fountain with
Knight as her handmaiden. But she had always liked Knight better than Perita, in any case. And if
Deukalion had been such a courtier, she would have said no.
“Yes. I will see you later tonight.”
He smiled his close-lipped smile that looked genuine and enigmatic at the same time. “I look
forward to it.”
“Good meal,” she wished him, as she had before.
When he disappeared again, she could not stifle a gasp.
Belatedly she realized her knees were no longer threatening to buckle, and the sweat that had
soaked her was now dry. Her stomach had ceased its rebellion. Their conversation had proved more
expedient than a retreat to her rooms to allay her response to the king.
Just a little longer now, and she would be able to escape. She rubbed Knight’s back, and he
blinked in contentment as he panted off the heat of the crowded room.
Was it her imagination, or for the rest of the evening, did the king not look at her at all?