“Lady Tarroux”—I make my voice strong—“is a lovely girl. I don’t usually say anything positive about nobles at all, for the obvious reasons, but she’s very different from them. And I know how much you appreciate difference. She’s honest, and sweet, and not at all hard to look at—”

“I won’t let Varia hurt you anymore,” he says, ignoring me bluntly.

“Miss Tarroux has never murdered anyone,” I say, soft and yet still loud enough for him to hear it. “She’s too upfront to ever lie to you. And best of all, I’m fairly certain she’d never try to kill you and take your heart for her own selfish needs—”

We stop. In the middle of the whirling ballroom, every color imaginable flitting by us, he tilts his head, his sharp jawline illuminated by the candlelight. I know what’s coming, as a hunting hound knows a foxhole, as the rooster knows the sun is coming, as a fish knows the tides. Some deep, old part of me—older than nineteen years by far—knows he is going to kiss me.

Lightning draws our bodies together—invisible fingers of lightning entwining around each other and locking us in place, hips to hips, chest to chest. The warmth of his lips, the soft insistence of his hands as they hold my waist—I can feel a strange fever building in me as his lips press to mine. He moves to my ear, the hollow beneath it, and kisses it gently, and I know then this is not the kiss from the Hunt. That kiss was a moon, longing and sweet. This kiss is the sun, blazing hot and brighter than the apex of sunrise, prickling my skin with sweat, nothing sweet or subtle about it. The heat wave nearly buckles my knees, and I hold fast to his coat to keep standing.

Half of me is screaming to pull away—this sunfire kiss will keep him running after me, not moving on. Half of me wants nothing more than to stay here, in this moment, embraced and wanted, the doubt and loneliness in my soul burning away.

He parts from me first, his dark eyes piercing down at me. “I will not kiss you a third time, Lady Zera, without you kissing me back. My pride will not allow it.”

A bittersweet taste lingers in my mouth, and the heated curtain lifts from my body. I can see—out of the corners of my eyes—people watching. Fione, Varia, Lady Tarroux, the furious king and shocked queen.

He isn’t giving up. Godsdamn him, he isn’t giving up! Have I not been obvious enough? What will it take for him to realize he’s better off without me? He is a prince; I am a Heartless. He has the world waiting for him, and I have only my regrets waiting for me. I will only pull him down.