Both were up and dressed by the time she was finished. She was on her second cup of coffee when they joined her in the dining room. She was seated upon the bench of the bay window with a hand lifted to hold back the lace panel curtain, watching the people leave their houses, sleepy-eyed maids and wives off to buy bread. Footmen walking dogs. Shop girls. Knife grinders hauling clunky wooden carts. Errand boys in ragged shirts and loose stockings. The sun was rising into a sharp new sky, layering shadows tinted lapis across the trees and sidewalks and everyone below.
She could not see Rhys. It was strange, though, because she could feel him. That touch of glacial cold, a subtle shiver to the air. But she did not call to him, and he never showed his face.
That was fine. Better than fine. For what she was about to do, she needed no distractions.
Hayden and Sandu fell upon the dishes she'd brought to the sideboard. The poached eggs were the last to disappear, but in the end, there wasn't even the smallest speck of cheese left.
'I'm going out today,' Zoe said into their silence.
Both of them only looked at her. She was wearing her lavender gown this morning, a necklace of amethysts and sapphires that sparkled with her every breath. The matching ear bobs were heavy but she wore them as well, and a bracelet of solid worked gold.
'I can't stay locked up here any longer. I'm useless and I'm bored. I want to come with you. I want to hunt. No—' She lifted a hand as Hayden opened his mouth; she could almost hear his
She Turned invisible. The prince started in his chair and exclaimed something in a flowing, unfamiliar language; Hayden only blinked a few times at her necklace.
She'd wanted to be clearly seen both beforehand and after. She'd wanted the jolt of resplendent jewels floating in midair, for there to be no mistaking what they were witnessing. From the expressions on their faces, her plan was successful.
Zoe willed herself visible. She looked directly at her fiance, into his shocked gaze.
'That's how I did it. That's how I escaped Darkfrith. If we return there unwed, they'll take me from you, Hayden. They'll give me to the Alpha. To someone in his line. I don't want that. I hope that you don't, either.'
'Zoe.' He pushed back his chair and crossed the room to her, kneeling before her. He took her hand in both of his; the bracelet slid back upon her arm. 'For the second time in too few days, you've handed me the revelation of a lifetime. You're Gifted. I had no idea. Darling.' His voice sank into a hush. 'I had no idea.'
Rhys was there. Suddenly, a mist against the wallpaper, standing alone.
'It was a revelation to me as well,' she said. 'And I wanted to tell you before. Truly.'
'Are there more like you?' asked the Zaharen prince eagerly. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table, his thin face alight. 'More females in your tribe who can do that?'
'No,' answered Hayden and Rhys together, and when she looked at him, Rhys lifted his chin and curved his shadow lips. His gaze swept her from head to toe from beneath thick lashes. 'She's the only one.'
It was agreed that she would go out to replenish their supplies. She'd expected that much; they would consider shopping a feminine obligation, and the prince at least appeared cheerful enough to have her take it over. But both Hayden and Sandu balked at anything more daring. They refused even to consider taking her along on their stalking of
True, she could not fly. But if she were to decide to follow them anyway, she doubted very much either of them would notice. Definitely a human would not. But it would be ruddy cold stealing about Paris all day, through back alleys and passageways and God knew where, without a scrap of clothing to shield her.
She agreed to shop for them. She deftly did not agree to anything else but turned the conversation sideways whenever Hayden seemed about to grow adamant that she not place herself in danger: crowds, streets, the Seine, churches, docks, anything involving public gardens or theatres or musicians. That would eliminate about 98 percent of the city, she reckoned.
She was in her room, removing the jewels, when he tapped at her door.
'Come in.'
Yet he hung back at the doorway, looking decidedly awkward. He wore a lawn shirt that needed bleach and a vest of dull bronze satin. She turned amid the pink-and-yellow frill of her little chamber and waited for him to speak.
'I don't know if you ever received my last missive to you. I franked it from this dot of a town near the coast ... It was a long while ago.'
'Yes,' Zoe said. 'I still have it.'
He flashed a quick smile. 'Do you indeed? You might recall I mentioned finding something for you.' The floor squeaked when he shifted his weight; he came forward only a few steps. 'It's nothing much. Certainly nothing compared to what you already have, but when I saw it, I was reminded of you. I was hoping it might please you. I planned to give it to you once back in England, but I thought that now might be a better time.' He delved into the slit pocket of his vest with two fingers, retrieved a ring. She caught a flicker of pure limpid blue.
'It's only a tourmaline. Not very rare, I'm afraid.' He placed it in her hand, and Zoe lifted it to the window.
'It's beautiful.' And it was, a gold filigree band, the square-cut stone within it purling song and light. 'Why, it matches your eyes,' she said, surprised.
He laughed, discomfited. 'I know. How indecorous of me. It's supposed to match yours, but the shop was so small, and the fellow didn't have jet or obsidian or anything so fine a black. He had this.'
She closed her fingers over the ring. 'I love it.'
'Do you? Really?'
'Hayden. It's quite perfect.'
He let out his breath on a grin; in that instant, he looked years younger, almost boyish. 'Splendid. Yes. Of course, I'll buy you something better later on. Diamonds, naturally. All the diamonds you like.'
She slipped the ring on her finger, held it up between them to be admired.
'I say. It does look well on you, doesn't it?'
'Yes.'
His smile faded. He stood there gazing at her, sun warming his face and eyelashes, glimmering in spears across the bronze-threaded vest.
'Zoe. I don't like this plan of you going out alone, even to such communal places. I know, I know I agreed to it, but'—he ran a finger under his cravat—'it seems absurdly risky. We know for a fact there are more sanf
'If that's the case,' she said, 'I'm hardly safer here.'
'Aye. I've thought of that too.' He lifted a hand, touched a lock of hair that lay across her shoulder, his gaze following the downward stroke of his fingers. 'I have so many fears for you. Should anything happen to you, I don't know what I'd do.'
Rhys had said nearly the same thing to her, not so very long past. The ghost of Lord Rhys, standing before her in the gloaming dusk of a backyard garden.
'Don't think such thoughts.' She smiled up at him, and it was only a little forced. 'Nothing is going to happen to me. I'm the most formidable creature on the Continent. You'll see.'
* * *
The sidewalk of the gray street actually felt hard against his back. He found himself mildly surprised at that, that he would enjoy the sensation of pavers, a pebble digging into the tender center of his left shoulder blade. Rhys tried to recall if he'd ever noticed it before, that the street felt so genuine. That he could hear the leaves rustle on the yellow shrub and hear the wind tumble decayed filth and debris along the gutters.
He was retreating here more and more. Depressing as his little street was, he found it more palatable than the vivid colors and demolishing music of the assembly hall.
This place felt closer to life. It did have that.
He found his familiar stretch of stone and settled back. The street was bathed in daylight and the gray people passed hither and yon. Rhys took up an entire section of the sidewalk and although no one looked at him
