The goal was not to make Kiki sputter like a broken wagon wheel, but it is a delightful side effect of my brazen question. It would be a lie to say I don’t enjoy the way her mouth opens and closes, dumbstruck for once in her unbearably clever life.

“Have you gone mad?” Sebastian asks.

I smile at him because if I don’t, I might spit in his face—again—and that will absolutely get me kicked out of this party. “Quite possibly.”

Without waiting for a response, I insert myself into his space, forcing him to the side. He could put up a fight but that would make a scene and, unlike me, Sebastian prizes the social niceties of the upper classes. He would never make a scene, especially not one as spectacularly scandalous as this.

One hand settles on Kiki’s waist while the other twines with hers.

She blinks at me through the black lace of her mask. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I am.” I shake my head, ignoring the musical cue lifting the feet of the dancers around us. We are a stone in a river, unmoved by the tides. “That is … if you are.”

For a second, she is silent. It is a terrible second. Truly, one of the worst.

But then, she smiles.

“I am.” She steps closer to me, our gowns flush against each other. “I don’t want to hide. Not from you. Not from them. Not anymore.”

There is no word in any language that can encapsulate what I feel in that moment. But I have always relied more on actions than words. And now, I let mine speak for me.

I take Kiki’s hands in mine and pull her close.

“Let us show them, then. Let us show them all.”

Kiki

I have danced with Ana many times—for instruction at first, tripping over each other’s toes and laughing so loudly we couldn’t hear the music, and then for practice—but never before has it felt like this.

Even through the layers upon layers of silk and velvet separating us, I can feel her warmth radiating against me. It burns me nearly as hot as the shocked and appalled gazes of every single soul in this ballroom, but it’s the only heat that matters to me.

“Everyone is staring,” Ana says. To anyone but me, she would sound like her normal self. All hard edges and bravado and courage, but I can hear the things she wants to hide from others. The note of uncertainty woven through every word.

“Let them,” I reply, twirling away from Ana with extra relish. When our bodies come together once more, my blood bubbles in my veins, effervescent.