Page 13

Lonan might be the master of masks, but I have no ability to hide my feelings. “Your Highness?” I whisper loudly. Hugo raises his brows at me. He’s just as confused.

Lonan grips the hilt of his sword. “My carriage was delayed by weather. I came ahead myself on horseback.”

Lord Van Asten nods. “Gossemort welcomes you.”

“What’s happening? Am I hallucinating? Was there something wrong with the cheese?” I whisper in Hugo’s ear. He shakes his head.

I look around at the other students. Most of them know Lonan, even in the younger years. They know him as the brilliant, talented older student, not . . . whatever this is.

Lonan takes his place at the head of the room before the grand staircase. My godfather finishes his speech, but I don’t hear it. I’m staring at Lonan, unable to look away, as he peers down his nose at the room.

The music starts back up, and people approach Lonan, bowing and shaking hands with him. I can hardly believe what I’m seeing.

I pull Hugo and Poppy back to our table, but it’s empty.

“Where are his glasses?” I say to Hugo. “His eyesight is terrible. He must not be able to see the end of his own arm.”

Hugo shrugs. The music is playing, but people don’t easily resume the dance floor.

I watch Lonan take an offered goblet, and there’s something about the way he grasps it, poised, the usual tension gone from his shoulders as he converses amicably with my godfather and several of the professors . . . It’s incredibly unlike him. Even that mask of charm he wears isn’t this relaxed. He doesn’t move like he normally does, doesn’t cut through the room with that predatory awareness, doesn’t hold the attention of every creature in his vicinity.

His eyes cut to mine.

Every cell in my body freezes.

“It isn’t him.”

The expression on the person who is definitely not Lonan shifts.

“What?” Hugo asks, but I ignore him. Whoever this person is, however much he might look like Lonan, he is someone, something entirely new. I can’t quite explain the magnetism, the way every color in the room just became brighter or why I feel my body warming as he holds eye contact with me.

I can’t believe I thought this was Lonan. The look on his face—confusion and awe and wonder. Something passes between us, and I know that whatever it is, it’s as much a shock to him as it is to me. His mouth parts as he stares back, ignoring those around him, and warmth spreads from my chest to my stomach. Suddenly we are the only two people in the hall, and there is a thread, alive and moving, between us, invisible but real.

I take an involuntary step in his direction, leaving Hugo behind. The prince pushes through the crowd toward me. One of the school governors, who was just speaking to him, looks affronted, but he doesn’t even acknowledge him as he weaves his way through the dancers, never breaking eye contact.

I might stop breathing if I look away. I don’t understand what this is. I only know that my broken heart feels more alive than it has in years, and it feels one thing with overwhelming ferocity—want.

Insatiable.

Demanding.

Like the universe will be drawn together and all will be made right if I could just reach him. I’m drawn toward him across the dance floor, past fellow classmates, never once able to blink or pull my eyes away from his. And once we finally meet in the center of the dance floor, it’s the strangest relief.

He stares down at me, wearing a look of wonder foreign to his face.

And it’s then that it hits me. In the light of the grand chandelier, I can see the exact shade of his irises with so much more clarity. The deepest blue. Like the treacherous waters of the icy northern sea, where the water is the deepest and the waves are the deadliest.

Not Lonan’s eyes.

He looks so much like him—the hair and face and posture are an exact copy. But his eyes—the depth of them, the color, alive and awake in a way Lonan’s aren’t. His jaw is stronger too, and there’s an openness in his expression. Maybe it’s just because I’m familiar with Lonan, all the masks he wears, that this person’s openness is such a contrast. But there’s nothing hiding behind his expression—he wears his shock, his fascination, his awe, openly.

Then he seems to catch himself and clears his throat, lifting his fist to his mouth. The signet ring of House Corlaine, the royal house, glints on his finger.

“Hello.”

I have never been so undone by a single word. It isn’t eloquent. It isn’t planned. I’ve read the words of the poets—a hundred ways to unravel the beauty and complexities of love and life and everything—but I’ve never heard a word so lovely as “hello.”

It strikes something deep in me, rouses something that has been asleep all these long years that my heart has been broken.