Page 78 of A Dance Macabre

“I need you to come with me,” he answers while offering his hand.

“What for?” I say tentatively, but still my hand slides into his, his skin warm and inviting.

He pulls me into his arms, and with my heels, we’re practically eye to eye. He gives my nose a quick peck. “It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t like surprises.” I hardly recognize myself when I follow my statement with a nearly-there giggle.

“Well,” he starts with a wink as he leads me out the door, “You’ve never been surprised by Wolfgang Vainglory.”

I say nothing as I follow him out, but I can’t help to think that his words ring true even in a deeper sense. Nothing about Wolfgang has been like it seemed.

“Areyou taking me to the bathhouse?”

Wolfgang shoots me a droll look. His palm is a comforting weight against mine as we walk down the vacant corridor, our footsteps bouncing against the stone walls. “How could that possibly be a surprise?”

I shrug, barely able to contain the shy smile tugging on my lips. The levity of our shared moment is as delicious as his cologne tickling my senses. The same ease that’s been growing in strength in the past week, wrapping around us like a soothing cloak.

“Here we are,” he says with excitement as he stops beside a closed door only a few steps away from the entrance of the bathhouse.

“The surprise is inside?” I ask, my gaze sweeping over Wolfgang’s face as if expecting to find an answer.

“Open the door,” he presses, his eyes shining.

There’s a knot in my throat. Maybe from nerves. Or perhaps, it’s from the slow realization that the surprise is a gift from Wolfgang.

I bite my inner lip, my hand curling over the large doorknob, timidly pushing the door open.

At first, my eyes can’t quite decipher what I’m staring at. It’s as if by walking through the threshold, I’ve somehow appeared back at the Grounds.

“Oh my gods …”

I peer around the room. My words evaporate into a stutter of indecipherable sounds as I try to absorb what I’m seeing.

It’s a near replica of my crematorium.

The stone dome overtop the stainless steel machinery. The sleek look of black obsidian and silk. I don’t miss the subtle additions of dark red and velvet, as if Wolfgang couldn’t help but need a reflection of himself inside this room as well.

“Now you can stay close,” he says softly beside me. His voice is meek as if waiting for me to say I hate it.

“You planned this?” I ask in awe. But of course he did, who else? He nods, smiling. “When? How?”

His expression turns boyish, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s been … a few weeks.”

The knot in my throat grows in size. A rock. A boulder. A brick wall I can barely climb. I hold Wolfgang’s piercing gaze.

“But—” I swallow, hoping I can speak through the obstruction, “a few weeks ago, we were still at each other’s throats.”

He looks down, hands stuffed into his pockets. Peering around the room, his eyes finally return to me. “The gods made me do it.” Obviously downplaying his intentions. He cracks a smile, and my heart skips a beat as he lets the silence linger. “Besides, Mount Pravitia should have had one already. Your family ruled the city once before too, didn’t they?”

“They used to burn the bodies publicly,” I state, my mind still running in circles unable to fully comprehend how Wolfgang planned to have a crematorium built for me.

Before we were even … this.

“They did?” Wolfgang replies, his eyebrows pulling upward in surprise.

I nod. “Crèvecoeurs were less private a hundred years ago, it seems,” I reply with a small grin.

Taking his hand out of his pocket, he steps closer, his fingers curling around my upper arm. He gives it a little squeeze. His gaze is seeking, open, and vulnerable. “Do you like it?”

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