Her palm stayed open between them. Sebastian's gaze dropped to it—then lifted back to her face, as if the question in her fingers needed reading twice before he'd trust what he saw. The torchlight caught the gold in his hair, the hollow at his throat where his pulse beat visible through fair skin.
His hand moved again. Slower this time. Not toward his pocket but toward hers, stopping a breath short of touching—close enough that she felt the heat of his skin without the contact. His fingers hovered, trembling almost imperceptibly, and she watched him make a decision she couldn't follow.
"You don't know what you're asking." His voice was rougher than she'd ever heard it. The laughter was gone from it, scraped clean. "Do you."
She didn't lower her hand. "Then tell me."
Behind her, she heard Adrian shift—not forward, not back. A settling of weight, like a man preparing to hold ground he hadn't chosen. She felt the scrape of his leather pauldron against stone, the faint creak of his belt as he adjusted his stance. He was watching. Still. Always watching.
Sebastian's jaw tightened. His hovering hand closed into a fist and dropped to his side. "If I touch you now—" He stopped. Swallowed. "I won't be able to let go. And this corridor has too many ears to be the place where I learn what that costs."
The honesty in it landed like a blow. She felt something crack open in her chest—a seam she'd been pressing against for weeks, maybe years. Her hand stayed up. Palm open. Fingers loose.
"Then take me somewhere there aren't ears."
His breath caught again. His eyes searched hers—for doubt, for hesitation, for the retreat he clearly expected to find. She gave him none. Beside her, behind her, Adrian's stillness became something else. A held breath. A decision of his own.
"Both of us," she said, and the words came out steady. "Or neither."
She didn't turn to look at Adrian when she said it. She didn't need to. The weight of his silence shifted—not away from her, but into something heavier, more present. His hand found the small of her back, light as a question, and the touch burned through the silk of her gown like a brand. She felt him step closer. Felt the wall of his heat at her spine. Felt the line of his chest against her shoulder blades as he said, without saying, I'm here.
Sebastian watched them. His hand found the carved horse in his pocket, closed around it, held still. When his eyes lifted to hers again, the sharp blue had gone dark—not with anger, but with something rawer. Want. Fear. A hope he didn't know how to name.
He nodded once. Turned. Walked down the corridor without looking back.
Isabella let her palm close into a fist and followed.
Her fingers closed around his forearm just above the wrist. The fabric of his tunic was fine wool, dark blue, warm from his body—and beneath it, the jump of his pulse, fast and hard. She felt him stop. Felt the tension travel up his arm into his shoulder, the way a man stops when he's been caught at something he wasn't sure he wanted to be caught at.
He didn't turn. His hand hung at his side, fingers loose, the carved horse still invisible in his pocket. The torchlight caught the edge of his jaw, the hollow beneath his ear where sweat had gathered in the corridor's stale heat. "Isabella." Just her name. No title. No laughter. His voice scraped against something she couldn't name.
"You asked if I knew what I was asking." She kept her grip light but didn't let go. Her thumb rested against the inside of his wrist, where the skin was thinner, softer. "I don't. But I'm asking anyway."
Behind her, Adrian's hand was still at the small of her back. She felt the calluses, the weight of his palm through the silk—a pressure that anchored without claiming. He hadn't moved closer. Hadn't pulled away. He was waiting, and the waiting itself was a choice he'd made.
Sebastian turned. Slowly, as if the motion cost him something. His blue eyes had gone dark, the sharp humor stripped away until what remained was raw and unguarded. His gaze dropped to her hand on his arm, then lifted to the shape of Adrian's silhouette behind her shoulder. He saw them together. Saw the geometry of it—her hand on Sebastian, Adrian's hand on her, the three of them strung like beads on a thread none of them had chosen but none of them had cut.
"Both." His voice cracked on the word. "You meant both."
She didn't correct him. Her throat was too tight for speech, so she simply held his gaze and let the truth of it stand in the space between them.
His breath left him in a long, slow exhale. He looked down at her hand on his arm—at her fingers, at the pale silk of her sleeve catching the torchlight—then back up at her face. The carved horse was in his hand now. She hadn't seen him reach for it. His thumb moved across its worn flank in a slow, unconscious rhythm.
"There's a stair." His voice steadied. Lowered. "Behind the tapestry of the winter hunt. It leads to the east tower. No guards. No ears."
She felt the words land in her chest like stones dropped into deep water—each one sending a ring through her that she couldn't track to its source. Her hand tightened on his arm, once, then loosened.
"How do you know about it?"
The ghost of a smile touched his mouth. "I'm a foreign prince in an allied court. I learned the first day where the shadows are." His thumb stilled on the wooden horse. "I'll be there when you're ready. Or not." He paused. "Both of you."