Her stomach dropped. “I’ll get it!” she called quickly, her voice louder than necessary as she hurried toward the door.
There was a muffled grunt from down the hall that might have been agreement, or might have been Elian ignoring her entirely, but she didn’t wait to find out.
She yanked the door open, and there he was.
Maldenis.
He looked exactly the same as the last time she’d seen him: tall, broad-shouldered, red hair catching the light. Still unfairly magnetic.
But today, there was something else in his expression.
Concern.
She stepped outside immediately and pulled the door shut behind her before Elian could wander out and ask inconvenient questions.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed under her breath.
Then she grabbed his arm, her fingers closing around him with more force than necessary, heat seeping through the fabricbeneath her palm, and started walking down the path away from the building. “Keep moving,” she muttered.
Maldenis blinked but let himself be dragged along.
She could feel him behind her as they went, solid, unyielding, his weight steady behind her. He didn’t resist. Didn’t question. Just followed, like this was already familiar ground.
“Not this again,” she said under her breath.
“Oh, good,” he replied dryly. “You remember me.”
She shot him a glare over her shoulder. “Don’t push it.”
They moved another twenty feet before she finally stopped and spun around to face him.
Her hand slipped from his arm but not right away. Her grip loosened slowly, her fingers lingering for a fraction longer than necessary before she forced herself to let go.
“Why are you here?”
Maldenis folded his arms, studying her like he was still deciding how much trouble she was worth.
Liora didn’t step back. Even without her hold on him, the space between them stayed tight, charged. He shifted his weight slightly toward her, subtle but deliberate, and she felt it—felt the pull of it—like something trying to draw her in.
Her chin lifted a fraction in response, meeting his gaze head-on. The space between them had opened, but it didn’t feel like it. She was acutely aware of him. How his presence seemed to press in, draw her attention whether she want it to or not. She hated that he could still do that.
“My family is dishonored,” he said. “We’ve all been shunned.”
Liora stared at him. Then she shrugged. “Sucks for you.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” she said briskly. “Tragic. Truly. Thoughts and prayers.”
Maldenis’s mouth twitched. “You’re taking this remarkably well for someone who caused the problem.”
“Oh,Icaused the problem?” she said, pointing at herself. “You were the one who brought me to the sacred marriage spring!”
“You asked for somewhere to swim.”
“You could have mentioned the wholemarriage ritualthing!”
“I didn’t know!” he shot back.
