Page 60 of Sonnets and Serpents
Swallowing, Silas looked down, glad at least to be rid of—
His bracelet was still attached.
The silence stretched until it was broken by the cry of an overhead gull, heading out to sea. Silas ran one hand through his hair, drawing it away from his forehead only to have it fall right back.
“Maybe Yvette was wrong,” Eliza said in a small voice.
“She wouldn’t be wrong about this,” Silas muttered. Had she left something out? He should have asked her for more details. Obviously, she wouldn’t have expected him toactuallygo through with a kiss.
He shouldn’t have. He’d carelessly redefined the terms without considering the consequences. Now, instead of being a princess he was stuck with, he’d made Eliza a princess he’d kissed.
Worse, a princess he’denjoyedkissing.
What was he to make of that?
Trying to reorient himself, he looked out at the street and saw the slope of the city leading to the university. The white buildings called to him like a haven. Clear and focused and familiar.
Without looking back at the princess, he said, “Let’s go.”
Eliza had made a terrible mistake. She’d actually believed that rotten snake when he’d said a kiss could be without meaning. But the way Silas had kissed her ... Her lips still tingled from the pressure of his mouth, and she felt a little jittering dance across her scalp where his phantom fingers still teased her hair. His kiss was not a fleeting, insignificant moment; it was a flaming brand that had left a mark she was certain would never fade.
No one could kiss like that and not mean it.
So what exactly had he meant?
She followed him numbly through the winding streets climbing steadily higher. The lowering sun cast her shadow out wide, like a giant version of herself, stomping along beside her and demanding answers she couldn’t offer. What had she been thinking? Nothing. She’d been impulsive, as always, steering a ship without any clear heading.
Her first kiss.
It was not the sun’s heat that made Eliza’s cheeks burn; it was her own recklessness. For so many years, she’d imagined her first kiss, imagined the romance of it, the beginning of an epic love story that would last forever. When she’d wished Henry good luck in his big tournament, he’d kissed her cheek, a brush so light it might have been a butterfly’s wing againsther skin. He’d whispered his intention to court her. Eliza had nearly broken her cheeks from smiling. She’d swooned all the way to her seat in the stands, and she’d imagined all the soaring moments to come, imagined romantic picnics and evenings beneath the stars, imagined teasing laughter and dizzying flirtation. She’d imagined a first kiss—a real kiss—that would have shaken the palace walls. But their love story had been halted by his banishment.
And now she’d given her first kiss away for what—spite? Goading? Because Silas drove her mad, and for a moment, all she’d wanted was to have the upper hand, to leave him speechless the way he always seemed to leave her. But he hadn’t been speechless. He’d been just as smug as ever.
There. That was a kiss.His low voice still echoed in her ears, and she could still taste him on her lips.
She’d kissed a snake!
She was insane!
Eliza shook her head fiercely, squeezing her eyes shut until she tripped over a raised stone in the path and had to limp quickly to catch up with Silas’s back. He never glanced over his shoulder, so all she had was a view of the red sash crossing his vibrant blue shirt. Sunlight tangled in his dark hair, fighting to shine through the black. Anything would struggle to shine next to Silas. He was the boldest presence she’d ever met.
And hereallyknew how to kiss.
Of course he did. He knew everything. He lived and breathed university, where he’d apparently developed a bond with every professor and read every book in the library and learned every language in the world and probably swallowed some forbidden Cast that gave him more knowledge than was right for any one person to hold.
It wasn’tright. Someone who didn’t believe in love shouldn’t be able to kiss like that. It wasn’tfair.
He shouldn’t be able to walk away without looking back.
When they reached the dorm, Silas didn’t go directly to his room. Instead, he picked the lock of the room next door and waved Eliza toward it.
“There’s enough length on our tether for privacy,” he said.
Eliza should have been thrilled. Instead, she was furious.
“When we werefirstbound together, I asked about my own room, and you had a smug answer about impressing faculty and research and whatever else. Why now?”
“Feeling generous,” he said flippantly, but the way he wouldn’t meet her eyes betrayed him. Something had changed, and there was only one thing it could be.
