He pushed himself away from the wall. He was truly agitated now, she realized, so much so that when he gestured, the movement of his hands seemed to shimmer in the air. It was something she had seen before, when ghosts became desperately upset—not that she wanted to think of Jesse as an ordinary sort of ghost like Jessamine, or Old Mol. “It’s almost a joke,” he said, and the bitterness in his voice surprised her. “A ghost falling in love with a living girl and pining away in a dusty attic while she lives her life. But I could survive that, Lucie. It would just be a tragedy for me.”

A ghost falling in love.

A small flame lit in Lucie’s chest. An ember, the beginning of a blaze. “It’s never a tragedy to love somebody.”

“I think Romeo and Juliet would disagree with you on that.” His voice shook. “And don’t you see? If—if you loved me back, then that is not just a tragedy for one of us; it’s a tragedy for both of us. For there can be no future in it.”

“Jesse,” she said. “Jesse, are you shivering?”

He looked up and around him with a sort of amazement. For a moment she saw the boy who’d saved her in Brocelind Forest when she was a child, the one she’d thought was some sort of changeling prince—pale-skinned and green-eyed. “I think,” he said, in a hushed voice, “that at this moment, perhaps, I am able to feel the wind.”

“See?” She caught hold of his hand; it was neither warm nor cold, but seemed to catch warmth from her own skin, his fingers curling over hers. “We have a future. I promise you we do—”

He stroked his free hand down the side of her cheek. “Command me, Lucie,” he said roughly. “I am asking you: command me to dance with you. Show me this waltz from Peru.”

Very slowly, her eyes never leaving his, Lucie unbuttoned her coat, slipping each circle of leather out of its buttonhole with gloved fingers. At last she stood before him, the coat hanging from her shoulders, the wind plastering the lacy scraps of her dress to her body. Jesse could not seem to look away; she could feel the gold locket at her throat rise and fall with her breath.

“Dance with me, Jesse Blackthorn,” she said. “I command you.”

He reached out, sliding his arms inside her coat, pulling her against him. She laid a palm against his shoulder; his free hand spanned the side of her waist. She fitted her body to his, and color swept into his face, flushing his cheeks. She did not question it. One should not, she felt instinctively, question miracles too closely.