“Like remind me that you’re something I can never have, no matter how much I want it, no matter how hard I try to tell myself I shouldn’t even want it in the first place.”

She looked at me like I’d driven a spear through her lungs. “Rowan.”

“I should hate you, but I don’t. I don’t hate you, and I don’t hate this place, and I want—”

The Huntress touched my face, and then her lips were on mine and my words fell to earth like spring snow, silent and inconsequential, as she kissed me. I wrapped my arms around her neck and pulled her closer. The throne faded, along with the rubble and the roses and my fears.

I opened my eyes when I felt light hit them. We stood beneath the crack in the ceiling, and above us, framed by scudding clouds, rose the moon.

“Wait.” I pushed the Huntress away from me with every ounce of willpower I possessed.

She paused, her hand cupping the back of my neck, her face half lit by moonlight. “My name is Isolde,” she said, answering the question I had not yet asked.

“Isolde.” I tasted it and discarded it in the same instant. “You are not Isolde.”

“No,” she said. “Do you believe me now?”

“Yes.” I moved to kiss her again, but she pulled away, a half-smile on the lips I wanted on my own.

“Dance with me.”

“What?” I asked, tugging at the collar of her shirt.

“Dance with me. Now. Here.” She stroked the embroidery along the sleeve of my dress.

“I was never a very good dancer,” I said, remembering the parties I had gone to in the city, dancing with too many men with too many hands while my eyes followed the women around us.

“It doesn’t matter.” She moved, her step as light and careful as it was in the woods, dancing with death with a spear in her hand. I moved with her, one hand on her shoulder, one hand on her waist. Had I been in the city, I would have placed my hands differently, but when I tried to adjust she shook her head.

“Just like this.” Her position mirrored mine, and I followed her steps while the wind whistled over the crack in the roof, making its own music. “You surprised me,” she said. “For a moment, I did not recognize you.”

“I should not have worn the dress.”

She pulled me to her with a complicated series of steps that caught me off guard. I felt her heart beating against mine as she spoke.

“I would know you in anything, Rowan. And I am very glad you wore it.” She grinned at me, and my heart skipped a beat as the woman I knew returned. “It was a trick of the moonlight and old ghosts. This side of the keep is full of them.”