Edinburgh rose into the afternoon sky like it had been waiting for us.
Stone upon stone, warm in the slanting light, every building holding the sun as if it had earned the right to keep it. The air carried that familiar blend of damp earth, yeast, and something faintly metallic from the old rail lines. History pressed close here. It did not hide its age. It wore it.
I tightened my grip on Artemis’s hand.
She walked half a step ahead of me, her free hand tucked into the pocket of her coat. She was pretending not to be delighted, but it radiated off her. The street sloped gently downward toward the Grassmarket, the same precise incline I had memorized months ago. I remembered calculating the angle of it during our first visit, as if geometry could have settled the feeling that my heart was too large for my ribcage.
She paused at the corner, turned slightly, eyes bright. “It smells the same.”
“It does,” I said.
I had stood in council chambers where every word altered the future of my clan. I had negotiated treaties that kept blood from staining snow. I had carried the weight of inheritance since before I understood what choice meant. None of it had made my pulse behave this way. None of it had made my palms damp.
This was absurd.
I wasn’t afraid she would refuse anything I asked of her. Artemis did not love lightly. She loved with the stubborn certainty of a scholar defending a thesis.
No, what tightened my chest was something far less dramatic and far more dangerous.
I did not want to fail her.
For too long I had been measured against a father who believed love was weakness and power was proof. I had been weighed and found wanting before I had ever drawn a first breath of flame. Not ruthless enough. Not ambitious enough. Not forged correctly.
It had taken me longer than I cared to admit to understand that I did not need to become him to be worthy.
I needed only to be hers.
The surprise waited ahead of us, folded neatly into the evening like a letter sealed in wax. Caliban had executed his portion with military precision. Eloise had insisted on addingatmosphere, which I had learned was a euphemism for emotional ambush.
I adjusted my coat as Artemis began walkingagain, unaware.
“You’re quiet,” she said, glancing back at me.
“I’m enjoying the architecture.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re plotting.”
“I do not plot,” I said calmly. “I strategize.”
“That’s worse.”
Her smile softened the accusation. She squeezed my hand once, absentmindedly, and my heart performed a humiliating rearrangement.
She did not know the extent of my devotion. Or perhaps she did and simply tolerated it.
When we had first come here, I had been careful and contained, measuring myself against ghosts. I had stood in this very city and wondered if I could ever belong in a place that didn’t require strength as proof of my worth.
Now I walked its streets with my fingers laced through hers.
That was the difference.
“Do you remember the exact slope?” she asked suddenly, looking down the street. “It’s steeper than it looks.”
“Twelve degrees,” I said automatically.
She stopped walking. “Of course you know that.”
“I was nervous.”
