She had wanted him since he held her on the stage floor with his arms locked around her and his heart slamming against her chest through their clothes. Possibly since he walked her home a year ago. Possibly before that.
She wanted him, and she had no idea what he wanted in return.
He almost kissed her, and then he didn't. She couldn't tell which was the truth. The not-knowing was going to eat her alive because the questions she'd been refusing to ask all season had finally arrived with nowhere left to hide.
What am I to him?
Why does he act like he would die for me, when I'm not even sure he likes me?
seven
. . .
The festival was wakingup around them.
Vendor stalls groaned open along the market lane, their shutters cracking through thin crusts of overnight ice. Strings of lights flickered on one section at a time, blue-white and amber.
Thorne walked one step behind Phoebe and did not look at the back of her neck.
He looked at the rooflines. He looked at the vendor hauling a crate of crystallized fruit. He looked at the string of lights over the spice merchant's awning. His peripheral vision tracked the slip of her scarf anyway.
She was quiet this morning. She had been quiet since her door.
He had not slept. Then he had filed a requisition for additional surveillance nodes, reread the rigging report twice, written three lines in his notebook, and deleted them.
The bakery windows were already fogged with Kaelor's warmth when they arrived. Through the condensation, shapes moved. Ember's quick efficiency behind the counter, the bulk of Kaelor pulling trays from the oven, the smaller figures in the booths.
He held the door for Phoebe and followed her inside just long enough to confirm the space. Kaelor caught his eye over the women's heads while Ember pulled Phoebe into a hug. The Cinnamite's amber eyes were warm and steady.
In the corner booth, Ivy was curled over coffee and what looked like a candle-making sketchbook, her dark, wavy hair half-braided with small crystals that caught the bakery's warm light. Rynlor was at the counter picking up a tea order, one hand braced on the wood, his golden glow dimmer than it should have been at this hour. He said something casual to Ivy over his shoulder. The kind of nothing-remark designed to bridge a distance without closing it. She answered with a brightness that sat a half-step above genuine, her hazel-green eyes lifting from the sketchbook and landing on his face with an attention she immediately redirected to her coffee.
Thorne's truth-sense flagged both of them. Rynlor's distance was performed. Ivy's lightness was constructed. He didn’t comment. Not his business. Not his jurisdiction.
Phoebe squeezed Ivy's shoulder as she passed the booth, and Ivy's smile at the contact was genuine.
Phoebe reached the counter and ordered from Ember. "Em, tell me you have the brown sugar ones from last year. Tell me they still exist."
"I made a double batch because I had a feeling." Ember was already reaching for a paper bag. "Kaelor said you'd want them with the cardamom butter."
"Kaelor is a mind reader, and I love him."
Kaelor's laugh rumbled from the back. "I am not a mind reader. You ordered them eleven times last season."
The bakery held her. Warm, easy, real. The usual polish she wore like stage makeup was gone, and here she was just Phoebe. Three seconds of it. That was all he allowed himself.
He turned and walked back into the cold.
The rehearsal spacesmelled of old wood and peppermint late that afternoon.
The peppermint was his. The old wood was the amphitheater's backstage infrastructure. He stood in a rehearsal room located behind the main stage. It was windowed along one wall with a view of the market lane, furnished with a battered piano, folding chairs, and a music stand that had seen better days. The late afternoon light came through the windows in long, pale bars and laid itself across the floor.
Thorne walked Phoebe through some of the upgraded measures recently put into place.
"The dressing-room threshold has a secondary scan layer now. It pings my comm directly on any entry. Lock codes rotate every twelve hours. I will provide the updated code before each performance."
She stood three feet from him with her coffee from Ember's bakery warming both hands. He looked at her. She looked back. Her eyes were steady, dark, and focused on him.
"Okay." She held his gaze for another second.
