A waiter passes with a tray of fruit, and Fione takes a delicate snowfig and rolls it around in her fingers with all her nervous energy. “Thank you.” She clears her throat after a moment. “For saving me, earlier.”

“Oh, psh.” I wave her off. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I do. I have been. You knew you would stab yourself for touching me,” Fione insists. “But you pushed me out of the way anyway.”

for selfish reasons, the hunger snarls. to assuage your own guilt.

Fione speaks more quietly. “You said our friendship meant nothing. But then you saved me. So what am I supposed to believe now?”

It’s hard to bite my tongue rather than answer her. She can believe whatever she wants. But her beliefs are better off without me in them.

“Oh! Lord Grat.” I bow to the huge noble boy as he passes, his shoulders so broad they barely fit in his coat. He’s the perfect distraction. He was part of the duel nearly two weeks earlier, where he’d promised to win it for me, and he looks no less eager to see me now.

“Lady Zera!” He smiles. “I had no idea you were attending.”

“Neither did I, until a half ago.” I laugh, lacing his arm in mine. “Would you care to dance with me?”

Using Lord Grat as an excuse, I bid farewell to Fione stiffly and head to the dance floor. Lord Grat’s body is so big and distinct, it’s easy to get us space on the dance floor, so the only pair of feet I have to worry about stepping on are his. The music is so loud that it almost drowns out the hunger. It’s like hearing someone shout at me from another room—I know there’s hostility, but I can’t distinguish the exact words.

I haven’t danced since those clumsy lessons in Y’shennria’s manor, with Reginall leading me. But my body remembers slightly better than I do, and soon Lord Grat and I are moving smoothly over the floor.

“I know it’s rude of me.” Lord Grat shoots me a shy smile. “But everyone’s been dying to know…” He trails off, waiting for me to approve, and I nod.

“Ask me anything. As long as it’s not my measurements. I require compensation in the form of massive amounts of gold for those.”

He laughs, twirling me around, and then when I come to face him again, he blurts, “Are you still Prince Lucien’s Spring Bride?”

“Straightforwardness, here in the court? Why, Lord Grat, you must be terribly curious.”