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Well, I don’t feel like a prisoner right this moment.
Well, I forgot that Weston Lark was an illusion.
Well.
I’ve grown too quiet, and so has he, and the air seems weighted with . . . ?something. I shiver and shake out my skirt.
“Turn around,” I say.
“Why?” he says brightly.
What a scoundrel. I throw his shirt back at him. “You know why.”
He smiles wolfishly, but he turns around. I dress with extra care anyway, slipping the skirt under my nightclothes, then pulling the shift out through the neck of my chemise. The palace clothes were more lovely than anything I’ve ever worn, but there’s something comforting about slipping into the old Tessa. I use the shift to dry my feet and then turn my back for him, balancing on one foot to pull on my socks and lace up my boots. Fabric rustles as he finishes changing behind me. I keep my eyes fixed ahead, on the flickering torches of the arch, watching how embers fall in tiny bursts, defying the night before burning out in the water below.
“Ready?” he says.
I turn around. My breath catches again.
He’s not shirtless. He’s not the King’s Justice. He’s . . . ?he’s Wes.
I’ve known the truth for days, and he proved it once before, but this . . . ?this is like seeing a ghost. His mask, his hat, his clothes. He’s Wes. He’s Wes.
It’s too much. I can’t help it. I stumble forward and throw my arms around him. My breath is hitching, and I’m trying to stop tears from falling. I’m failing.
He catches me, and at first I think he’s going to set me upright or make a bratty comment about how I really need to stop crying on his shoulder, but he doesn’t.
He doesn’t say anything. He just holds me, his arms tight against my back.
Eventually, my breathing steadies, but I don’t raise my head. He’s warm and sure and real against me, his breath whispering against my hair.
“Forgive me,” he says quietly, and his voice is rough. I squeeze my eyes closed again. His thumb drifts across my cheek. “Please, Tessa. Forgive me.”
I take a deep breath—but there’s so much. Too much? I don’t know.
Ithink of that moment when the Hold exploded, how he was about to kiss me, and I stopped him.
He’s not Wes, not really.
I’m not quite ready to let him go yet, though.
Eventually, I remember that we have things to do and lives to save. I draw back and look up into those eyes I know so well. “We can’t stay here.”
He nods, but his gaze doesn’t leave mine.
I blink the last of my tears away. “Do you—” I have to clear my throat. “Do you have a mask for me?”
“Yes.” He pulls one from his pack, along with a hat.
I tie it into place and swallow hard against the lump in my throat.
Now he’s staring at me the way I was just staring at him, and I have to force myself to look away and tie up my pack. “Where . . . ? um, where are we leaving these?”
“There’s a chest outside the gate. Do you remember how I told you to escape from the carriage? That’s my exit.”
I nod and sniff and shoulder the pack, then fall into step beside him. We slip silently through the grass.
The dark and silence begins to feel too weighted, so I say, “What if someone comes to your room?”
