“Did Father send you?” Without something to hold, Kiki’s hands start in on each other. If left to her own devices, she’d worry the fragile skin around her cuticles to shreds. Any other day, and I would reach out and take her hand in mine to keep her from hurting herself. But today, I keep my hands to myself. It will be good practice, I think, for the future, when she will not be so near for me to touch.

I kneel by her side before rocking back onto my rear in the dirt next to her. My skirt will no doubt be terrifically soiled, but I can’t find it in me to care.

“No,” I reply.

“Then why did you come?”

“Where else would I be?” It’s not an answer, not really. She deserves more than that, certainly, but we are both dancing around truths we dare not share. We have been for years. It’s a dance we both know so well that the steps are emblazoned in our memories. We don’t even have to think about doing it. We just do.

She hums softly in the back of her throat. I open my mouth. Shut it again.

I feel like the whole world is holding its breath. The birds go silent in the trees. The leaves cease their quiet susurration. All I hear is the too loud sound of my own heartbeat.

I ask her the very question I don’t want to. But I have to. I must. My tongue darts over my suddenly dry lips, moistening them just enough for them to release the words.

“Do you want to marry him?”

The look Kiki shoots me breaks my heart. Her brow pinches as her fingers cease their restless tangling.

“How can you ask me that?”

It’s preposterous now that I think about it. Of course she doesn’t want to marry him. Sebastian is an ass. An utter, unrepentant ass. I know it. She knows it. Her father knows it. Hell, even the viceroy probably knows it. But none of that matters in the face of centuries of traditions and bloodlines and the crushing weight of expectation.

I shrug, aiming for something light. “I don’t know. You did get hit pretty hard on the head last night. Thought it might have addled your senses.”

The sound she makes isn’t quite a laugh, but it’s not so terribly removed from one that I cannot accept it as the tiniest of victories.

“No. I don’t want to marry him. I never have.” She reaches for a twig and begins to pick off the drying leaves that stubbornly cling to the bark. Her hands do so loathe to be idle.

Oh, mother of God.