The material of my dress is so thin I can feel the searing heat of his hand against my waist. I imagine his fingertips leaving red imprints on my skin, and the image makes the fine hairs on the nape of my neck stand on end. “Thank you,” I say hoarsely.

“It’s the truth,” he says with a shrug. “You do. Even though you’re distraught.”

“I’m not distraught.”

He leans down so close that his lips brush against my ear when he whispers, “Liar.”

When he stands back up with a small smile, I get a whiff of something sharp and pungent, and a bit like sandalwood and vetiver. I wrinkle my nose and say the first thing that comes to mind. “Your magic smells much better than your cologne.”

His face blanks for a moment. “My… magic?”

It hits me a second too late that the conversation has taken a turn toward the intimate and that it’s all my fault. I fight the urge to run from his curious gaze by finding a speck of dust on his tie to stare at instead.

“You can smell my castings?”

That bit of dust is captivating. “Yes…?” He laughs, easy and loud. When I look up, he’s shaking his head. “What?”

His grin is completely unguarded, and filled with something like awe. “You are remarkable.”

“Thank you?”

His eyes dart over my shoulder toward the stage before he spins me in his arms, my back to his front. “And I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

At the front, the band is closing out the slow dance, and just off the side of the stage stands a group of Legendborn, with Nick, Pete, and William in a line at the end. Nick’s eyes are glued to us, to Sel’s body draped around mine—and the anger on his face burns bright as a firework, even halfway across the room.

I pull away, but Sel’s fingers hold fast at my hip, keeping me close. He murmurs low, just for my ears, “Oh, the scene he’d make if he could.”

I twist to glare up at him. “Are you doing this just to make him jealous?”

His eyes flash. “No. But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it.”

He lets me go, but there’s nowhere to move, so the most I can do is avoid eye contact while he chuckles beside me.

Finally the band brings the song to an end and the ting-ting-ting of a knife against glass breaks up the murmuring crowd.