“That isn’t funny.”
“Don’t grit your teeth so hard. I didn’t expect we’d discover my Card within the hour.” Her eyes dipped to the hourglass. “There are a few moments left. Let’s talk about something different. Something besides my Maiden.”
Elm rubbed his palms on his knees. “Ask me anything.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two vexing years. And you?”
“The same. Though I imagine my years were easier earned than yours.” Her gaze shifted over his black tunic, then back to his face.
Elm studied those hazel eyes. “The way you look at me from time to time—it’s as if you’re searching me. What exactly are you looking for?”
“Maybe I find you handsome.”
His lips quirked. “But that’s not the only reason you look at me.”
Ione’s expression was smooth, carved out of marble, giving nothing away. “And me, Prince? Do you find me beautiful?”
Elm’s laugh chafed his throat. “There’s not a person in this castle who doesn’t.”
“That’s half an answer.”
“So was yours.”
Her eyes narrowed. Slowly, Ione said, “I’ve been looking for Hauth in your face. For temper or cruelty or indifference.” She leaned forward. “But I can’t find any. I see guile, tiredness, fear. Anger, without a trace of violence.” She drew in a breath. “You are both Rowans—and less similar than I ever imagined.”
Elm felt something deep within him stir. He leaned back, resting his weight on his arms, ready to steer the conversation as far away from his brother as it could go. “You said you can’t feel anything anymore. Yet I’ve watched your cheeks go pink. You feel heat, cold. Pain. What else can you feel?”
The light in the cellar was dim—but not dim enough to mask the faint flush in Ione’s cheeks. “I c-can’t—” She snapped her mouth shut, tried again. “N-n-noth—”
The Chalice didn’t let her lie. What intrigued Elm was that she’d tried to. “Don’t fight it.”
She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and scowled. For a moment, she looked like she might waste her breath again on lying. But then she took another drink of wine and said, “Desire. I can still feel desire.”
Elm sat up on an exhale. “And how, Miss Hawthorn, did you discover that?”
“It’s my turn to ask.”
He opened his hands, offering himself up.
“Do you know where my mother and brothers are?”
The right question. But the wrong choice of words. “No.” Energy pooled in Elm’s palms. He tapped his fingertips on the floor. Wine. He needed more wine. “What kind of desire?” He dragged the cup out of Ione’s hands and refilled it, watching her over the rim as he drank. “Spare no detail.”
He didn’t miss the way her eyes flew to the hourglass. The sand was almost gone. She could wait it out—punish him with silence and not answer the question. He deserved it, of course, the subject of desire decidedly unPrincely—
“My skin feels overwarm. Especially here,” Ione said, running her thumb down the center of her mouth. “And here.” Her fingers trailed over ripped fabric below her collarbone. “Here.” She lowered her hand, pressing it into her dress, just below her navel. Her eyes lifted, crashing into Elm’s. “Between my legs. A thrumming, unquiet ache. A cruel trick of the Maiden, I think. My body is the same as it ever was. I can feel all the physical sensations of attraction. But my heart remains…locked.”
Elm’s mouth went dry, the hazy edges of his vision hurtling into sharp focus. He’d watched her hand go down her body—felt his own body respond. Wherever that unquiet ache was, he wanted to find it. Touch it. Put his mouth on it.
He swallowed, his words so rough they scraped out of him. “Do you feel it now?”
When her eyes stayed on his, he knew the answer.
Elm dropped his gaze to the hourglass. Empty. He ran the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip. “It’s time, Hawthorn. Our wager.”
Ione folded her arms in front of her. “Where’s your Scythe?”
Elm retrieved it from his pocket, twirling it between his middle and index fingers.
“All right then, Prince,” she said, the needle returning to her voice. “Make your case. Prove you remember me before Equinox.”
He smiled. “Let’s see—which memory of Ione Hawthorn shall I pull from…” He took a long sip of wine, savoring the moment like he did before crushing Ravyn in chess. “How about when you were a girl and rode your father’s horse on the forest road without shoes, yellow hair in the wind, mud caked up to your ankles? Or perhaps a more recent time. Equinox, two years ago. No one asked you to dance, so you simply danced alone—rather well, I might add.”
Elm set the wine down and leaned forward. Even seated, he towered over her. “The smile lines, I was fond of.” His gaze traced the corners of her mouth, her eyes. “Your eyelashes were blonder. You had freckles and red patches of skin. A gap between your front teeth. Your eyes are the only thing the Maiden hasn’t altered too much. Only, before Equinox, they were happy.”
He dipped his chin. A sharp floral scent filled his nose. “You were the strangest girl I’d ever seen. Because no one at Stone is happy. They pretend at it, or drink, but the performance has its tells. But not you. You were…painfully real.”
Ione was frozen. Elm pulled back and slid the Chalice Card off the floor, holding it up between them. He wouldn’t gloat. But it would be very, very easy. “Game’s over, Hawthorn. Any last words?”
It seemed to hit her at once. What he’d said. That she’d lost their wager. “Go to hell, Prince.”
Elm laughed, deep and loud enough to shake the barbs in him. “You have a wonderful mouth.” He tapped the Chalice three times, severing its hold. “And now, it’s all mine.”
He hooked Ione’s chin between his thumb and index finger, the same way she’d held his in the dungeon, and leaned in, halting just before their lips grazed. When Elm whispered into her mouth, he made sure to touch her bottom lip with his thumb, where he knew she’d be warm. “You really thought I wouldn’t remember you?”
She had. He could tell by the flare in her eyes.
“All that talk of pleasure and warmth and that terrible, unquiet ache between your legs,” he murmured. “You painted such a pretty picture for me. And wouldn’t it be fun, denying me a kiss, had I lost our bet? To take my Scythe and render me helpless?” His top lip brushed hers. “Tell me, Hawthorn—does it make you feel something, toying with me like this?”
Her breath came in sharp, quick inhales. Her lips parted, and Elm’s thumb slipped over her wet inner lip. When she looked up at him, there was enough honesty in her eyes to render a Chalice useless. “Yes.”
“Then do it,” he whispered, gliding a hand up her spine. “Use me. Toy with me. Feel something, Ione.”
She lost a breath, and Elm sucked it into his mouth. That hazel gaze hardened a moment, cold and distrusting, but whatever Ione saw in his face was enough to make them thaw. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, pressing her lips against Elm’s in a hard, punishing kiss.