“I’m not really certain how to dance with another person.” She scrunched her nose and stared at their clasped hands. “Usually, I just spin in circles until I get dizzy.”
“Well—” He’d miscalculated. The music, which had been a lively and spritely tune, had sobered into something slower, more intimate. He’d tortured many men over his ten years in this business. For information, for making him angry, for trying to kill him, and he’d been loath to admit it…but he even did it once because he’d seen a man being cruel to a duck.
It had been a bonus to find out the man was a retired Valiant Guard, but that was neither here nor there.
This was a different sort of torture, one he’d never experienced before. He’d become so good at not wanting anything above what he could take—but this woman was not a possession. She was a person he greatly admired and respected. Someone he relied on more than he’d ever thought possible.
Someone to whom he would never admit any of this.
You get this one happy moment, he reminded himself.
Without hesitating, Trystan placed his other hand on the small of her back, guiding her into his embrace. Her breath hitched, and Trystan could feel the warmth from her skin through the silken fabric of her dress. Clearing his throat, he brought their clasped hands up and began gliding them in slow steps.
“So, you dance?” Sage asked, her face tilting up to his. It was closer than he thought, and when he looked down, he saw why: she was dancing on the tips of her toes.
“I learned years ago when I worked for—” He cut off, not because he didn’t want to finish his sentence but because just then, Trystan caught sight of a familiar face in the crowd across the bridge.
“What is my sister doing here?” The Villain asked in confusion.
“Clare’s here?” Sage whipped her head to where he looked, but neither of them stopped swaying or staying linked together. The wheels of her brain were turning a mile a minute—he could tell by the look in her eyes. “You don’t think the traitor could be…”
He interrupted before she could get the thought out. “I’ve had my guards tailing both of my siblings since the bomb incident. They have both been accounted for at the traitor’s every turn. They hate me, certainly, but it is not either of them trying to take me down.”
“I don’t think they hate you,” Evie said quietly as he moved them into a gentle spin.
“You can’t know that.” Trystan wouldn’t look at her. Instead, he found one of the lights behind them and kept his gaze glued there.
“But I do.” She pressed the tip of one shoe onto his until he looked at her. “I know that love between siblings. They have it for you; it’s quite obvious.”
“It’s not like what you have with Lyssa,” he said, sweeping her out into another spin.
She laughed, deeply, before spinning back into his arms. “Our relationship’s a little different, yes, but the fundamentals are the same. I used to endlessly annoy my brother when we were children, often on purpose. But at the end of the day, we’d do anything for one another.”
“I didn’t realize you had a brother,” Trystan said softly, acutely aware that Sage was the sole provider of her family.
“He died.” There was a lifelessness to Sage’s voice that startled him.
“That must have been very difficult for you.” Their dancing had slowed, but they were still moving, still spinning.
“It was more the abruptness of it.” She remained looking at him, but her eyes were blank. “It was an accident…with my mother’s magic. Life never stopped changing after that. Gideon was gone, then my mother. I left school to take care of Lyssa and then had to stop my schooling to begin working after my father fell ill. I feel like my life keeps happening to me, rather than me living it.”
It was a sad story; Trystan had heard many of those. That wasn’t what affected him. It was the way she’d delivered the words, looking right at him. Her gaze open and honest as she laid her weaknesses bare, like they were worthy of every part of his attention.
She had it, all of it.
“I’ve felt like that, too.” He paused. “Like life is just happening to me. Many times.”
At the declaration, a startled look came over her face, which nearly made him stop, but he didn’t.
“I wasn’t prepared to see my father this evening.”
“That was my fault. I’m so, so—” But she stopped when he gave her a mock glare. He wanted to rip that godsforsaken word from her vocabulary.