. . .
The distancebetween them had changed even though the route was the same.
Same cobblestones, same market lane, same vendor stalls creaking open in the early morning with their owners grumbling into thermoses and the same vanilla snow crunching under their boots. Everything the same, except the distance between them.
That careful space Thorne had maintained for weeks through that precise professional gap between his body and hers, was simply gone. Their shoulders brushed as they walked now. When a Zingiberite hauling a cart of golden root bundles cut across the lane and the crowd bottlenecked between two stalls, Thorne's hand found the small of her back and guided her through, and the pressure of his palm through her coat sent a heat through her body that had nothing to do with his skin temperature and spread low in her belly and settled there like lit kindling.
At the bakery door, he turned to her, and she rose on her toes and kissed him.
Unhidden. In the open. The vanilla snow falling around them and a Cinnamite vendor two stalls down giving an approvingwhistle she pretended not to hear. Thorne’s mouth was cold peppermint and felt like home.
He touched her jaw, and his thumb traced along her cheekbone, drawing a line that her body read as a promise for more to come later.
“I will be at the amphitheater by midmorning,” he said, and kissed her once more before he left.
She watched him go. The width of his shoulders cutting through the morning cold, the long, measured stride, his pale hair catching the morning light. She didn’t even pretend she wasn’t watching.
When Phoebe entered the bakery, Ember was grinning behind the counter like she’d had front-row seats through the window and had thoroughly enjoyed the performance.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say a word.” Ember’s grin widened. “Not one single word.”
Kaelor set a warm pastry and coffee in front of Phoebe without being asked, radiating enough heat to fog the bakery windows, and murmured something to Ember that made Ember swat his arm.
"She doesn't need a play-by-play, Kae."
Kaelor's quiet smile said the play-by-play had been complimentary.
The bakery door opened behind Phoebe, and Ivy slid in with her candle-supply ledger under one arm and snow dusting her shoulders, her lavender scent cutting through the cinnamon-and-bread warmth of the room. She dropped into the booth next to Phoebe, set her ledger down, and stared into Phoebe’s eyes.
“Rynlor just walked into the shop and said he saw the most interesting thing happening outside the bakery." Ivy paused, waiting for Phoebe to fill in the details.
“With you and Thorne,” she prodded.
Phoebe smiled, but stayed silent, pulling off a piece of the pastry and popping it into her mouth.
“Spill, Phoebe. So help me… if you try to act normal right now?—"
"I am acting normal."
"You're glowing."
"It's the bakery lighting."
Ivy's hazel-green eyes dropped to Phoebe's neck. One eyebrow lifted. She pointed.
"What's the lighting's excuse for that?"
Phoebe's hand flew to her throat. Above her collar, a curl of frost-art caught the bakery's warm light, shimmering and delicate as spider silk in silver-white against her dark skin. She'd forgotten to check.
Ember dissolved into laughter. Full-body, doubled-over, tears-at-the-corners laughter that shook the pastry case. Kaelor turned away, but his shoulders were moving.
The word that came out of Phoebe's mouth was not one she would have used in front of her mother.
Ivy picked up her ledger and opened it, her point made, and already moving on. Ember was still wiping her eyes.
Then Kaelor's expression changed.
