the fire, the feeling of it, rushes out of me. Maybe if I can contain it somehow, and pull out a tendril of it . . .”
This time, the magic came more easily. A surge of power, a spark around the wick of a candle.
By the end of the evening, several candles flickered, and a large fire burned in the grate. She was conscious of every beat of her heart. Her limbs ached, but it was a comfortable kind of tired, like she actually fit in her skin.
She sat on the floor, her legs tucked beneath her. Finnegan had an arm draped around her shoulder, and she didn’t even mind, didn’t want to shove him away. Hours of practice had made them feel closer. In tune. Hours of picking up fragments of her anger and pushing them across the room, of sharing her feelings with words, of him coaxing more out of her than she knew she had. One stubborn part of her still wanted do it alone, to have the magic be her power, but sharing it with Finnegan, accepting a partner, did not mean it wasn’t hers. She felt . . . open.
“Well,” Finnegan said. “I suppose we’d better stop for tonight.”
He turned his head, his nose inches from hers. He was not grinning now. If he just shifted a couple of inches, he could kiss her.
She glanced at his lips.
It was just the dark, the candlelight, confusing her thoughts. But her heart pounded faster, and her breath hitched as he slipped almost unperceivably closer.
He was going to kiss her.
She couldn’t let him kiss her. Not now, not when things were so confused, not when she needed this alliance to work. She ducked her head. “I’m exhausted,” she said. “I should rest.”
“You don’t have to worry,” he said, as he sat back. “I’m not going to kiss you.”
“Why not?” She did not mean to speak, but the words rushed out before she could stop them. They were not what she would have wanted to say. I don’t want you to kiss me, perhaps. Or how dare you assume? There had been something there, a moment, but that did not mean she was desperate for him to kiss her.
“I’m waiting for you to kiss me. I feel like you’ve been kissed enough times in your life. But if you leaned up and kissed me, if you were so overcome that you couldn’t resist . . . well, that would be something worth seeing, wouldn’t it?”
She stood up. “You’ll be waiting a long time.”
He stood too, utterly calm, smiling his infuriating smile. “Don’t worry, Aurora,” he said, as she walked away. “It’ll be worth the wait.”
NINE
SOMETHING FELT DIFFERENT WHEN AURORA AWOKE the next morning. A maid had opened the window, letting in fresh air, but something about the room felt a little too sharp, a little too cold.
Aurora rolled onto her side and burrowed deeper into the blankets.
A rose lay on the pillow next to her. A piece of paper was wrapped around the stem. Aurora sat up, her hair tumbling around her face. Was this some joke from Finnegan, a comment on last night? She picked it up. One word had been written on the parchment.
Soon.
Aurora recognized that handwriting. She had seen it burned into the wall of her tower, taunting her for a life long lost.
Celestine.
Celestine had been here. In this city, in this palace, in her bedroom while she slept. Aurora dropped the rose and scrambled out of bed, avoiding the flower as though it might bite her.
She spun on the spot. Celestine was not there. Not in the room, not lurking in a corner, waiting to be noticed.
Aurora ripped the blankets off the bed and threw the pillow aside, hunting for another message, another clue. Nothing. Her dresser was untouched, as was her desk. Just the open window, and the rose on the pillow.
She picked up the flower again, careful to avoid its thorns. Celestine had broken in while she slept. To do what? Threaten her? Warn her?
She must know that Aurora had been practicing her magic. She must have seen her conjure fire, and this was her way of congratulating her or unsettling her. She wanted Aurora to know she was close.
Aurora ran to the entrance hall, her hair still tangled from sleep, the rose clutched in her hand. One guard stood on duty. He stood to attention as she approached, but she was too unnerved for formalities. “Did anyone come in overnight?” Aurora said.