Page 103 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
Dimitri was standing by the desk.
“Dimitri!” she shrieked. "What are you doing in my room?”
“You’re in my room all the time!”
“Yes, but, well, that is rather my job…”
“I’m sorry, I just wanted to do something for you, since you’ve been working so hard. I thought I’d come in and clean your room for you as you do mine all the time but it turns out your room is spotless and also I can’t clean.”
At this, Adeline laughed.
“I thought maybe I could run you a bath, but there’s no bath in here, so I ran out of ideas very quickly but I still wanted to see you, even just for a minute.” He looked down at the floor, as if hoping it could swallow him. “You can kick me out, now.”
She smiled again, unable to stop herself, marching over to grab him by the shoulders and maneuvering him to face the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not kicking you out,” she said, “but I do need to get changed for bed. I reallyamexhausted.”
“Oh, right,” he said, flesh cheek reddening. “Of course.” He kept his gaze firmly fixed on the wall, and she kept her gaze tight on him as she unlaced her dress and climbed into her nightgown, too tired to do much more than arrange it on the chair in the corner, ready for tomorrow. She took off her cap and unpinned her braid, letting it fall over her shoulder.
Finally, she removed her key necklace from underneath her garments, lest he spot her wearing it, and laid it down on the dresser.
“Decent,” she declared. “Largely.”
Dimitri turned around, looking like he was trying to swallow a grin. “I swear I shall never get used to seeing you in a nightgown with your hair down, and yet I wish to summon you up every night to test that theory.”
“You summon me up every night, I’m quitting.”
Dimitri prickled.
“Relax,” she said, slipping past him into the bed, “I am only teasing. I have no plans at present to leave this decidedly comfortable job.” She crawled under the covers, feeling him hovering beside her. “No plans to leaveyou,”she added.
She could hear him breathing. “Shall I read to you until you fall asleep?”
“It hurts your eyes to read for long periods.”
“I don’t care.”
She turned around to face him. “Icare,” she insisted, patting the space on the bed beside her. What was one more little rule broken?
Dimitri swallowed, and obediently sat.
“Tell me a story instead,” she whispered, exhaustion pulling at her bones.
“I could recite to you several passages about the battle of—”
“Dimitri, as much as I want to fall asleep, please don’t recite history to me.”
He sighed. “All right,” he said. “Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there stood a castle in a dark forest…”
“Ooh, I already like where this is going!”
“Just let me tell it then!”
“Sorry.” Adeline giggled, shifting closer. His hand fell across her pillow, to the end of her braid. She felt him tugging at it, and reached up to free it in its entirety, letting it spill over her back and shoulders.
Dimitri’s eyes widened, his voice vanishing.
