"Has the interview already been scheduled?" The question came out colder than he intended.
"Not yet, but I?—"
"I will be present."
Her eyebrows rose. "It's an interview, Thorne. Not a security threat."
"Your security detail is non-negotiable for the duration of the safety review. That includes scheduled meetings with credentialed personnel."
She studied him. He kept his face neutral and did not say what he wanted to say, which wasDo not be in a room with that man without me.
"Fine," she said. "You can stand in the corner and look intimidating. You're good at that."
She picked up her coffee and walked past him toward the door. She paused at the threshold.
"Thorne?"
"Miss Calloway."
"The harmony. The Mentharian one. Will you teach me the rest of it?"
His hands were fists at his sides. The frost was forming on the inside of his gloves where she could not see it.
"Yes. Of course."
He walked her to her dressing room like normal. He did his usual thorough sweep of the room and listened to the lock engage as she closed the door behind him. He walked back to the rehearsal space. The room had settled into silence, and the sheet music she'd left on the piano stand was still laced with a hint of frost.
He stood there and looked at it.
He did not touch it. He did not move it. He left it exactly where it was, frost and all, and locked the room behind him.
eight
. . .
His shoulders cuta clean line through the vanilla snow.
Phoebe stood at the bakery window and watched Thorne walk away the next morning. She watched his stride eat up the cobblestones, his dark uniform stark against the white-dusted market lane, the morning light catching the silver in his hair. His breath fogged crystalline and fine in the cold air, and she tracked the rhythm of it until he turned the corner past Ivy’s candle-maker stall and disappeared.
When she turned back to the counter, Ember was flour-dusted and grinning at her.
"Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face is saying it."
Ember's grin widened.
Kaelor set a warm pastry and coffee in front of Phoebe. Cinnamon-apple, her favorite, the plate still radiated the impossible Cinnamite warmth that kept the bakery windows fogged at the edges. He murmured something to Ember as he passed, and Ember swatted his arm and laughed.
"What did he say?"
"Nothing."
"Em?"
"He said you were staring so hard you fogged up his clean window." Ember wiped her hands on her apron already dusted with flour at seven in the morning and leaned her elbows on the counter. "Pheebs. When are you going to stop pretending the man who memorized your tea order and walks you home every night is just doing his job?"
