Page 89 of Split or Swallow

For a minute, they simply looked at each other. In the silence, Tem allowed herself to truly see Leo. He was breathing hard, just like she was. His hair was a mess of chaotic spikes, and his lipstick-smeared shirt was surely ruined. He looked perfectly, incandescently human. In that moment, despite herself, Tem felt her heart bend in his direction.

“You never turned the hourglass,” she whispered.

Leo smiled.

“You’re right.”

He crossed to the table and flipped the hourglass on its head. Tem watched as the sparkling gold flakes began to fall. When Leo returned to her, he kissed her again. It was a proper kiss this time—one that built slowly, warming Tem from the inside out. His tongue traced along hers as his arms pulled her closer with unprecedented tenderness. He held her as if she were something precious to him—something sacred. In the sanctuary of his embrace, Tem forgot about the evening. She forgot about Vera, about Caspen, about the voice in the castle. There was only this kiss, right now, with Leo. When they finally pulled apart, the hourglass had long since run out.

“So,” Tem whispered, her lips still an inch from his. “Will you keep me around?”

Leo smiled, his gold teeth flashing in the dim light.

“For as long as you’ll let me.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Tem went straight to bed without washing up.

She told herself it was because she was tired, but she knew in her heart it was because she didn’t want to wash Leo’s scent off of her. His cologne lingered in her hair, on her dress, on her hands. It reminded her of the way his body had felt when it was pressed against hers—how he’d hiked up her dress and touched her. Tem pictured those long fingers of his, imagining what else they could do. She fell asleep thinking about Leo.

She woke up thinking about Caspen.

It was her first day without the claw, and Tem felt its absence the moment she opened her eyes. She touched her clitoris tentatively, missing the way it used to cradle her.

“Tem, dear?” her mother knocked on her door. “Are you awake? They expect us at the square.”

It was then that Tem remembered what day it was.

Every autumn, the village celebrated the anniversary of their victory in the war with a weeklong festival honoring the royals. It was a time of reverence and gratitude, culminating in an extravagant celebration in the town square. Tem and her mother always provided rooster feathers to symbolize the defeat of the basilisks. This year the festival was even more important: it was rumored that a special ceremony would occur.

The Passing of the Crown was a longstanding tradition in the royal family. Whenever a prince was about to take a wife, the king would pass him his crown. It wasn’t an official transfer of power—that would occur at the wedding. Rather, it was a way for the current king to acknowledge the future king’s potential. The gesture represented a father’s faith in his son’s ability to rule. It was an extremely important event, and a way for Maximus to give Leo his blessing.

Tem rolled onto her back, closing her eyes.

Do not trust the king.

She still had no idea where the voice had come from. But she knew it was somewhere in the castle, and Tem vowed that the next time she was there, she would find it.

Tem joined her mother in the chicken coop to gather feathers for the festival. When they arrived at the town square it was packed with people. Tem immediately found Gabriel and joined him in hanging golden flags from the eaves of the shops surrounding the square.

The day passed in a series of menial tasks.

Tem alternated between thinking about Leo and thinking about Caspen. She wondered if either of them were thinking about her. Her attempts to contact Caspen had been fruitless: the wall between them remained firmly in place, and every time Tem tried to send a thought down the corridor in her mind, it was met with resistance. Eventually, she stopped trying.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Gabriel prompted. They were hanging flags outside the butcher shop.

“I’m thinking.”

“About?”

Tem sighed.

“Last night.”

She told Gabriel everything that had happened at the castle, leaving out only her conversation with Caspen and the disembodied voice. He asked her to describe her sixty seconds with Leo in excruciating detail, giggling with unrestrained glee at everything that occurred behind the closed door.

“So?” he asked when she’d finished.