“Not just now, if you please.” Leander darted a wary glance over his shoulder as he opened the carriage door and offered me a hand up the steps. “The last thing I want is for your father to think I’m taking even more advantage of you tonight.”

“As if I would let you take advantage of me.” I huffed, my earlier tangle of emotions subsiding, as I lifted my skirts to step inside all on my own. Silver shivered in a glittering cascade around me in the faint light that streamed from the nearby cottage windows. “I make my own decisions. I just don’t happen to like seeing creatures suffer when I can help them.”

“That I know.” Leander’s voice was low as he closed the carriage door behind him.

Suddenly we were alone in that warm, enclosed space. Darkness wrapped around us, squeezing my chest tight.

I took a quick, shallow breath as I sat down on my cushioned seat and pressed my back firmly against the carriage wall. I was not some fluff-headed flibbertigibbet who could be flustered by a bit of close darkness and a handsome, teasing necromancer. Leander and I were jointly preparing for a battle, not for a…whatever-it-could-be that had my skin prickling with points of racing heat and breathless energy now.

“So,” I said firmly, “tell me about this necromancer we’re about to duel.”

“Sebastian Netherpool.” The words dripped with disdain as Leander settled into the seat across from me, his satin coat whispering against the cushions.

He rapped his knuckles against the carriage wall. A haunting, ethereal tune sounded from the bone-chimes outside as the skeletal horses all swept into motion, launching us through the dark with preternatural speed. The sudden motion jolted me forward, and my knee brushed lightly against Leander’s. I scrambled backwards, breath catching in my throat.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem to have noticed. “You shouldn’t have to take part in the duel tonight,” he said, as if I needed any reassurance. “With so many watching eyes, Netherpool should keep to the rules of necromantic combat, but he’s never been known for his high moral standards.”

“Ha.” I could have told him that much myself; I’d seen those poor minions before I’d fixed them. “How did you get tangled up in his affairs in the first place?”