The feel of her rapid pulse beneath my fingertips had chased away all rational thought, the soft intake of her breath making my heart race. It had taken Tristan slamming the throne room door to bring me back to the moment, and I’d had no choice but to drop her hand or risk missing everything. Though in hindsight, missing Tristan’s performance might have been worth it.

“You’re an idiot,” I muttered to myself. Pénélope almost never attended the public audiences, so it was no coincidence that of all the places she could have sought me out, it was there. The Duke had probably sent her to distract me – or worse, to see how I reacted to Tristan’s proposal. It was all just an act on her part.

But it had felt real.

It had felt right.

I shook away my thoughts as we entered the path leading down to the flooded stadium, Tristan keeping up the act of being irritated until we were well out of sight. Then he abruptly picked Anaïs up off her feet and whirled her in a circle. “You are brilliant. That couldn’t have gone more perfectly.”

“Not even if your father had agreed to change the law?” I asked, coming up behind them.

“Wouldn’t that have been something?” Tristan replied, setting Anaïs back on her feet. “Fortunately, the Duke was there to argue against it. The last thing we need is our schemes bolstering my father’s popularity, which a change in this law would most certainly have done.”

This was an area where Tristan and I disagreed. Hundreds of half-blood lives would be saved by the King changing the laws. Yes, it would weaken momentum for the sympathizer cause, but that seemed a small price to pay. I counted every life saved, every small victory, as worthwhile, but for Tristan, it sometimes felt like it was all or nothing. I tried to temper him, to make him see those he was fighting for as individuals rather than pieces of a grand plan, but there were days I believed I’d have more luck getting water from a stone. “You might consider how much damage you’re doing to your own popularity.”

He shrugged as though he couldn’t care less what the half-bloods thought of him – what anyone thought of him – and said, “I’ll so offend to make offense a skill, redeeming time when men least think I will.”

“Be careful to whom you quote poetry written by a human, or people will start to question the veracity of your behavior.”

“Exactly,” he responded. “This is how it has to be, whether I like it or not. When I tear down the system of their oppression, they won’t care about my previous conduct.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but I said nothing as his expression brightened, eyes having lighted upon the twins.

“Rise up!” Vincent shouted from where he stood on a floating platform with his sister.

“Your timing was perfect,” Tristan called back. “All those sheets of paper flying through the air the moment we stepped outside the gates – couldn’t have done it better myself.” He ran down the worn steps to the banks of the lake, then slid across the water on a sheet of magic until he stood between the twins, where their banter continued. I went to follow, then hesitated as I caught sight of Anaïs’s expression. “Is something wrong?”