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I laugh.
She startles, then frowns.
A weight drops between us again, hot and sudden. I don’t know what just happened.
Tessa swallows. “You remind me so much of Wes when you laugh.” Her eyes gleam. “I can’t tell who’s real and who’s the illusion.”
Those words carry so much pain that I nearly flinch. I hold my breath for a moment.
I reach out and touch her hand the way she just did to me. The way we did a hundred times in the woods, when the nights were too difficult.
I wait for her to pull away, but she doesn’t. I close my fingers around hers, and we stare out at the lights of the city.
“You see through all my illusions,” I say, and my voice is rough.
She turns to look up at me, and I hate that there’s hope in her eyes. It reminds me so much of our last night in the woods, when I promised to return—and then I didn’t. I’m destined to disappoint her. There’s a prison full of smugglers that are proof enough of that.
Even still, I can’t let go.
I lift my other hand to touch her face, tentatively at first, but then more sure when she doesn’t pull away. “You remind me of how it felt to be Wes.”
Her breathing shakes, and her eyes fall closed. “I hate you.”
“I know.” My thumb strokes across her mouth, and her lips part. We’re closer somehow, all but sharing breath.
Then her eyes open, and she gasps. She puts her free hand in the gap between our faces, her fingertips against my mouth. Her eyes blaze into mine.
I want to take her hand and push it out of the way. I want to press my mouth to hers. I want my hands on her waist, on her back, on every inch of skin this gown leaves bare—and some inches that it does not. I want her scent in my head and her taste on my tongue and her arms wound around my neck.
I can’t move. I want her to want those things, too.
“You’re not Wes,” she whispers.
The words hit me like an arrow, and I step back. The distance between us is suddenly immeasurable.
Light and sound explode outside the window, so bright and loud that I jerk her away from the glass. We stumble back six feet, but nothing comes close to the palace. Fire has erupted a few blocks away, at the Hold, flames billowing high into the night. I can already hear shouts from distant parts of the palace, and people running in the streets down below.
“What—what’s happening—” she begins.
“Guards!” I shout. The door to the room swings open, and guards burst in.
Another explosion in the city makes the windowpanes rattle. Near the Hold again. The flames are three stories high. The alarms in the sector start blaring.
Anotherexplosion. I don’t flinch this time.
Another.
A guard is speaking to me. “Your Highness. You should move away from the windows.”
But I can’t. I can’t look away.
The Royal Sector is on fire.
