I have Lady Ruth’s reading glasses in my pocket. I take out the case and hand it to Baz. He puts on the gold-rimmed glasses, winding the springs carefully behind each ear.

I can’t help but laugh once he has them on. His eyes look huge and blinky behind the thick lenses. I slide my arms around his waist. “Look at you, all specky.”

He frowns down at me. He’s only three inches taller, but I swear he stretches it out to six when he feels like it. He looks like a very handsome, very judgy owl.

“Kiss me,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to kiss someone with glasses.”

“Bunce was right there…”

“You look like a steampunk vampire.”

“That’s absurd—”

I kiss him. It is absurd. I can’t even see the glasses like this. I pull away just enough that I can.

Baz cocks an eyebrow above the frames. “I don’t think this is what Lady Salisbury had in mind when she lent us her heirloom reading glasses.”

“I don’t think she’d mind. She seems like she likes a good time.”

“Really. You think she’s up to party.”

“You know what I mean…” I kiss him again quickly. “I’ve never kissed you in the library. Think of all the places we could have kissed if we’d figured this out sooner.”

He looks up at my forehead, threading one hand into my hair. His grey eyes are enormous. “If you’d figured it out sooner…”

I could argue with him, tease him, return his serve. But I don’t want to. I push him back against a bookshelf and kiss him some more. My hands are on his waist. I can feel his skin, cool through his cotton shirt.

Baz is wearing another long-sleeved button-down. (I don’t think the heat ever bothers him, even when the sun does.) This one’s got brown and blue stripes, but when you get close, you see that the blue stripes are flowers. His trousers are nice, too—inky blue. He said he dressed up for Lady Ruth, but I think he just likes to dress up. I think he likes to look like he’s going somewhere important.

I push my chest against his. The shelf behind him creaks.

How much kissing would there have been? If I’d figured it out sooner? In the library, on the Great Lawn. In our room …

Christ. Baz in our room, his hair slicked back, his tie perfectly knotted—hating me. (But not really hating me. Not only hating me.)

He puts his other hand in my hair, too, like he’s trying to hold me steady. Every time I push my face forward, the back of his head knocks books off the shelf behind him.

How many walls could I have shoved him up against? How many empty corners could we have found?