drenching the cultivated paths. At the end of the walled garden stood a pavilion of white marble, shining in the moonlight, its balconies overgrown with vines. They walked forward arm in arm, passing beneath arbors that dripped with blooms, the paving stones carpeted in petals.
“How did you find out about this?” Elisabeth asked, as they climbed the pavilion’s steps. She felt as though it might vanish beneath her feet at any moment, like an illusion.
“My parents used to bring me here when I was young. I thought it was the ruin of an ancient castle. Maximilian and I would play for hours.” He paused. “I haven’t been back here since. He would have been fourteen now—my brother.”
Silence fell between them. They had reached the top. Over a balustrade twined with blossoming white roses, the view looked out across the gardens, back toward the palace. Its windows sparkled like diamonds in a stone setting, the towers framed by stars. They were too far away for Elisabeth to guess where the ballroom was amid all that light: a different world, one filled with music and dancing and laughter.
Sorrow constricted her throat. She considered Nathaniel, his pale features just as distant. She didn’t know what to say or how to reach across the gulf between them. She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him, as everyone else had done, everyone but Silas, whose service came at such a terrible cost. The pain of it sang inside her like music, every note a wound.
“I’m sorry,” Nathaniel said. “I didn’t bring you here to tell you about my family.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Please. Never apologize to me for that.”
“It’s hardly an appropriate topic for a celebratory occasion.”
She saw him drawing inward, preparing to lock himself away. “You aren’t like Baltasar,” she blurted out, realizing this might be her only chance to say it. “You know that, don’t you?”
His face twisted. For a terrible moment, she thought he might laugh. Then he said, “There’s something you have to know about me. When my father began researching the ritual, I knew exactly what he was planning. I never tried to stop him. I hoped that it would work. I wanted them back, Max and my mother. I would have done any evil thing to have them back.”
“You were twelve years old,” she said softly.
“Old enough to know right from wrong.” Finally, he looked at her, his eyes bleak. “My father was a good man. All his life, he was good, except for the very end.” His expression said, So how can there be any hope for me?
“You’re good, Nathaniel,” she said quietly. She placed a hand on his cheek. “You are.”
Beneath her touch, a tremor ran through him. He looked at her as though he were drowning, as though she had been the one to push him, and he did not know what to do. “Elisabeth,” he said, her name wrung from him as a plea.
Her heart stopped. His eyes were as dark and turbulent as a river in midwinter, and very close. She felt as though she stood on a precipice, and that if she leaned forward, she would fall. She would fall, and drown with him; she would never resurface for air.
She tilted toward him, and felt him do the same. Her head spun. Nothing could have prepared her for this: that she would experience her first kiss in moonlight, surrounded by roses, with a boy who summoned storms and commanded angels to spread their wings. It was like a dream. She readied herself for the shock and the plunge, for the quenching of this agony inside her, which strained her soul to breaking.
Their lips brushed, divinely soft; the barest touch, more intoxicating than the perfume of the roses. “You don’t taste of champagne,” she breathed out dizzily, wonderingly. “I thought you would taste of champagne.”
This time, he did laugh. She felt it as a shiver of air across her cheek. “I didn’t drink any. I thought I had better not.”
“But—” She drew back, and looked at him. Had she imagined that moment in the parlor? The moment he had suddenly lost his balance, seemed disoriented, right after he’d looked outside and said . . .
The hair stood up on her arms.
“Is something the matter?” Nathaniel asked.
“I don’t know.” She glanced around. “If you didn’t want to talk about your family, why did you bring me here?”
“I . . .” His brow furrowed. “Oddly enough, I can’t precisely . . .”
He didn’t know. He