Page 65 of Sonnets and Serpents
“I’m notactuallya snake, you know.” After a moment, he admitted, begrudgingly, “They are skittish. It takes a mild-tempered gelding to tolerate me as a rider.”
Eliza laughed.
“Anyway, Maggie would lay out a feast of whatever she’d smuggled from the kitchen, and she’d force me to play hacky sack with her, and she’d give me a new book. She always got me a book, but she only picked the ones that looked interesting to her. She’s the reason I’ve read half the pastoral poetry I have, or that author you carry around in your pocket.”
He’d been smiling, but it faded slowly, leaving behind something that looked like aching pain. Eliza’s heart twisted.
“You miss her?” she asked.
He nodded, and since she couldn’t let him be gloomy on his birthday, she launched into speech without thinking.
“Aria never made a fuss on her birthdays. She went along with whatever our parents planned. The thing is, I think she wasactuallyhappy with that. I think she just appreciated that people cared, however they showed it.” Eliza winced, leaning against the wall to mirror his pose. “It always made me feel selfish when I had specific plans—when I didn’t want Father’s falconry exhibition or Mother’s recital.”
“That’s not selfish,” he said. “Just honest.”
“You seem to value honesty.”
He frowned. “Doesn’t everyone?”
Eliza ducked her head in another laugh, shifting slightly. He’d clearly never been to court. Or spent time in her home. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d upset her family by beingtoo honest. Her parents were both masters of stepping around distasteful truths, and while Aria preferred honesty, if that honesty revealed any problems, she usually blamed herself for them.
Silas didn’t deflect Eliza’s opinionsorinternalize them; he met them head-on with his own. While that made him frustrating, it also made her feel like she could tell himanythingwithout worrying about how it might affect him. Like she could be herself without apology. He’d already seen her at her worst, both insult-flinging anger and racking-sob despair, and he’d taken both without flinching.
Hesitantly, Eliza smiled. They were both leaning against the wall, facing each other. She’d shifted closer to him without meaning to.
He brushed his hair back, but it almost immediately fell into his eyes again. His dark, captivating eyes. The sensations of their kiss came flooding back—the tingle of his fingers through her hair, the dizzying pressure of his lips against hers. The way he’d responded to her touch, pulling her closer, wrapping her in his embrace.
Was she blushing? She was certainly blushing.
Yet she couldn’t pull her gaze from his.
In the interest of honesty, she admitted the truth to herself:I want him to kiss me again.
But the moment she had the thought, she heard her father’s accusing voice:Another of your romantic whims?
Her momentary flush of desire sank in the depths of shame, and she shoved away from the wall.
“Good night,” she said abruptly, fleeing into the safety of herroom. She pressed her back to the closed door and dropped her burning face in her hands.
She’d crossed anoceanfor Henry, and now she was acting like this? Flirting with another boy? Hoping to be kissed? She was proving her father right.
She prayed Yvette came back with news about Henry soon. In the meantime, Eliza would work with Silas because she had to, but she wouldnotthink of kissing him again.
The news about the dead Stone Caster churned in Silas’s mind. While waiting to hear from Yvette again, he tried to conduct his experiments, tried to find any evidence of magic being stolen in the city, but he couldn’t focus.
Half of that was Eliza’s fault. Every time she opened her mouth, she spilled a bucket ofHenry, as if determined to wash away every other topic with praise ofthe most charming knight in existence.
Silas tried to tune it out, but her voice pierced his thoughts in a way nothing else could.
So, finally, he dragged her out into the city, backtracking a few streets because he had only a vague idea how to reach his destination, until, at last, they came to a low fence sectioning off a gloomy, oft-avoided part of Izili.
The public graveyard.
With its history of bloodshed, Pravusat had its share of bodies, and most of them were interred in public graveyards. Pravish culture—so bold in so many areas—held grief as a quiet thing. Those who lost loved ones kept a stick of incense burning, and they said silent, private prayers. Graves were not visited,because no one believed a spirit was tied to the resting place of its body, and no one believed a body meant anything after decay.
So the graveyard was silent.
Absently, Silas rubbed the gold bracelet on his wrist. He could sense the magic within it, but he couldn’t read it, couldn’t discern if it carried any faint connection to one of the unadorned markers in the yard.
