“Stress,” Seth answered promptly.

Giovanni raised one bushy eyebrow. “Your poor mother. You probably eat her out of house and home.”

“Maybe that’s the reason she wanted to get rid of me, and sent me to a boarding school,” Seth said. Though his tone was light, his eyes had darkened, the look in them unreadable as they mirrored the flickering candlelight.

Not noticing, Giovanni asked, “You two go to Seven Hills?”

We answered in the affirmative. “You don’t seem like the other students from there,” Giovanni said. “You’re not snobby enough.”

“It’s only been two weeks,” Seth said. “Next time we come here we might be.”

Giovanni let out a rumbling laugh before handing us the bill.

After paying and putting our coats on, we made our way towards the door. Seth already had a hand on the door handle when, from the other end of the restaurant, Giovanni shouted,

“Don’t let anyone catch you! Oh, and greet Maria for me!”

Before either of us could ask who Maria was, he disappeared into the kitchen.

“Maybe his daughter?” I guessed as we stepped outside, tucking my hands into the pockets of my coat again.

“Have you met a Maria?”

“No. You?”

“Evelyn, I haven’t talked to a single girl beside you.”

“You’ve also talked to Amelia,” I pointed out.

“Okay, I haven’t voluntarily talked to a single girl beside you.”

“Harsh.” I chuckled, shaking my head. “She’s not even that bad. Just a bit uptight.”

Seth only raised an eyebrow. He was walking at a brisk speed that made it difficult to keep up with him, a chilly gust of air blowing through his hair. With his dark coat billowing behind him and his pale face briefly illuminated whenever we passed under a streetlamp, he looked a little bit like one of the detectives he adored reading about so much.

“You know,” I said. “I’m sure I could introduce you to some girls.”

Seth’s lips quirked into an amused smile. “Thanks, but I think I’m good. I don’t think a boarding school is the best place to get into a relationship.”

“True,” I laughed.

“And besides . . . I don’t really want any of that, I think.”

“Any of what?”

“A relationship. I don’t know why, but I don’t see myself ever fancying anyone like that, you know?”

“Maybe you’re aromantic?” I suggested, trying to keep up with him as he strode down the alley. In front of us, the road back to the castle came into view.

“No, that’s not what I mean—I don’t know. I just don’t believe that love like that really exists.” He broke off. “Sorry, that was bleak.”

I shook my head and quietly said, “No, it’s okay.”

I understood what he was trying to say, but the idea of it felt like I was a paper doll standing in front of an abyss, waiting for the next gust of wind to blow me over the edge, and so I didn’t want to linger on it. Love, to me, was the thing that mattered the most. I craved it like plants craved water or my lungs craved air: the kind of heart-racing, earth-shattering, all-consuming love that I had read about thousands of times, the kind that made Darcy a better man and Orpheus turn around, the perfect kind that transformed everything. It simply had to exist. Otherwise what was the sense in anything?