Page 67 of A Match Made in Error

She cuts me. “Whatever you say,” Angora sings before diving into another soliloquy about silk.

From the corner of my eye, I see Rodrick move closer. Too close.

Poppy smiles politely, the kind she uses on difficult customers and overly confident men who think history entitles them to something.

I breathe a sigh of relief. She doesn’t look dazzled. She doesn’t look undone. She looks… bored.

Good. That’s good.

Across the table, Angora is still speaking. I nod at what I consider appropriate moments and say something clever enough to keep her entertained. My voice works. My charm works. My body is positioned just right. Open, relaxed, and unaffected after my brief moment of fluster.

Performance mode.

Despite it all, my attention keeps slipping back to Poppy.

Rodrick says something that makes her laugh again, and my jaw tightens.

It’s irrational. I know that.

She’s not angled toward him. Not really. Not the way she does when she’s invested. There’s distance in her shoulders. Space between their hands. So unlike the space we had during the first trial, or even last night.

Angora’s fingers trail lightly over my wrist, trying to get my attention.

I don’t react, because my shadows are pushing in, slipping in through my open mouth and nostrils, and⁠—

Suddenly, all I can see in my mind’s eye is Poppy in the first trial—drenched, hair plastered to her skin, firelight catching in her eyes while she hung on with her legs wrapped around my waist. She was so annoyed in that moment, and impossibly alive.

That had been easy to categorize. I blamed it on adrenaline and proximity. The need to trick the Moirai and survive while being bitterly annoyed with the circumstances.

Breath steals from my lungs as my shadows push deeper. I’ve done this to others, forced words or images into a mind, but never have my shadows turned on me in such a way.

Without warning, I see her in my mind in another way, cross-legged on the bed last night, beating me at cards and gloating like she’d conquered a kingdom.

And then, her sprawled beside me this morning, sunlight catching in the hollow of her throat while she complained about having to “perform” again tonight.

Moments that were mundane, ordinary, and ours.

Suddenly, heat coils low in my stomach, and it has nothing to do with spectacle and everything to do with the way Poppy curls into me in her sleep without thinking. The way she trusts me.

Across the room, Rodrick smiles at her, eyes only for the witch across from him.

Something sharp pulls tight in my chest.

Angora laughs at something I’ve supposedly just said. I don’t remember saying it because the realization is hitting me like a blade sliding between ribs.

Because right now, watching her across the room, imagining her in my bed and wrapped around my body is doing something to me that no thoughts of a friend should elicit.

My pulse spikes. Heat floods my body. I shift in my chair subtly, steadying my breathing as desire floods my system.

This is…inconvenient.

Because wanting her when we’re putting on a show is manageable. Wanting her when she’s laughing over cards. When she’s half-asleep and defenseless. When she isn’t trying to be anything at all⁠—

That’s lust.

That’s something with teeth.

And, scariest part, I don’t know when it started.