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He shrugs. “So? It’s your favourite book, isn’t it? I thought it might amuse you.”
I purse my lips in thought and point at his head. “You’re missing the long curls.”
“‘Like black candles’,” Zachary quotes. “I know. I had a wig but took it off, it was too hot.”
It’s at this point that I realise Zachary is more than a little tipsy. It’s funny and sweet because he’s still enunciating perfectly, and his posture is still as rigid and formal as that of a royal guardsman. What gives him away is something else—something I can’t quite explain. A sort of softness, I guess.
A feeling that his drawbridge has been lowered, the gateway to him hanging open, his armour laid aside for once. The softness of him, all exposed to me, makes me want to soften, too.
“It’s a crying shame,” I tell him, brushing my fingers down his velvet sleeve. “I would have loved to see you in the wig. You know, I’ve never told anyone this, but I used to have a crush on Captain Hook when I was a kid.”
Zachary’s eyes widen. “You did not.”
I nod quite seriously. “I did.”
“What was it that so fascinated you?” Zachary lifts his arm again. “Not the hook, surely?”
I shake my head. “No, not the hook. It was the handsome countenance, the excellent diction, the Oxford education. I was obsessed with his death scene, the way he went. His final words to Peter—bad form.” I shiver. “So dignified.”
Zachary stares at me for a moment.
“I’ve never read the book,” he says in a thoughtful tone.
“No?” I sigh. “I doubt you’d like it anyway. It’s very fanciful.”
We stare at each other. Zachary speaks again, but this time, it’s not about the book.
“Where were you hiding, angel? I looked for you everywhere.”
My heart tightens without warning. “You did?”
“Everywhere.” His tone is solemn. He reaches towards me and touches the feathered edges of my wings with his hook-free hand. “Maybe I should have gone to the chapel, in retrospect. Probably the wisest place to seek angels.”
“Mm, or maybe you should have searched the heavens.”
Zachary lets out a sigh of laughter. “Yes, I imagine you’d be right at home in the sky.”
I shake my head. “I wasn’t hiding in the sky or the chapel. You shouldn’t have bothered to look for me—I wasn’t even at the game.”
He catches his breath in an audible gasp—his drunk self is more prone to melodrama than his sober self, it would seem. “You cheated?”
“I didn’t cheat. I wasn’t even there.”
“Your friends all told me you were there. They swore it. I looked everywhere. I went all the way up to the lake.” His tone is almost rueful.
It’s hard not to be amused—or touched—by his disappointment.
“Well,” I say, trying to speak in my most bracing tone, “did you at least manage to catch any other girls during your search?”
“No,” he replies glumly. “I only cared about catching you.”
Even tipsy, his intensity still unfurls from him like veils of heat from a furnace.
“Oh.” My heart is beating a little faster than it should, my throat is a little tight. I wonder if I drank more than I realised, if I’m tipsy too and just don’t know it. “Why?”
“Because catching anybody else wouldn’t feel worth it.” He smiles suddenly, a flash of white teeth. “My victories only ever taste like victories when they’re won against you, Theodora.”
He steps closer, standing inches away, and gazes down at me from the height of his stature, which is outgrowing mine at an alarming rate. His voice is low and thoughtful, his gaze is a dreamy caress as if he’s seeing me for the first time.
