Page 115 of A Dance of Lies

“I . . . broke your vase,” I say, tipping my gaze away.

“I hated the thing anyway.”

“You didn’t even see which one.”

“I’m really not fond of vases.”

I let out a huff, allowing my hands to fall. “I can’t go back there.” I don’t care that I’m in the thin, velvet nightdress I had worn into Philam, a mere slip of fabric that now rides all the way up my thighs. But he isn’t looking at that.

He’s looking at me, his verdant eyes limned in starlight.

“I know what it’s like to feel lonely and stifled by the dark. I should have taken more consideration with the room I gave you.” He swipes away the tendril of hair plastered to my cheek. “As it happens, it was the only one with fresh linens, and I can’t risk sending you back to your room just yet. We have another three hours until dawn.”

Even sitting as I am, I begin to sway. Not from panic now, but exhaustion so deep even my bones ache. “Here. I will stay here.”

“On my balcony? I think not.” He takes my hand and helps me up, guiding me back through sheets of rustling curtains and into the room beyond.

It’s a large, circular expanse plush with rugs, flooded with wavering firelight from a hearth to my right. To my left is a wide, four-poster bed. A duvet sits askew, sheets and pillows strewn about, the ceiling domed and painted like an aurora borealis above.

I turn back to Anton, taking stock of his attire. The silk pants in particular, the way his hair is disheveled, tossed about by the breeze. “I can’t stay here,” I say.

Because this is hisbedroom.

“I rather think you should. It’s open, spacious, and the fire lends just enough warmth against the cool nighttime breeze,” he says, moving to kindle the hearth.

I back up, my shoulder blades hitting an armoire, and blurt the first excuse I can think of. “I might be sick. I would ruin your coverlet . . .”

“All the more reason to let me keep an eye on you.”

“You expect me to sleep in your bed.”

“I will not lay a hand on you, Minnow. I swear it on my life.”

I believe him. I do.

But then, why does my throat constrict at the thought? At the prospect of trusting him, of burrowing beneath his sheets, even after what we did in that brothel . . .

I am not afraid of him. So why the fear?

Then my mind snags on the night I found Illian next to my bed, watching me. The way he wanted something I didn’t understand. And Anton—

Anton is hisbrother.

He watches me now, frowning at the distance I’ve put between us. Then he grabs a bottle in a drawer beneath the night table. “This is brazenflower oil.” He dabs several beads on his wrist, and immediately his skin reddens and swells. “Not a soul knows about this, but I am allergic to it. Of course I’m trying to change that little by little, but I have not yet succeeded.”

He strides toward the bed, then lugs something from underneath it. A sword glints, his hand coiled about its hilt. My breath catches, but then he lacquers oil over it in a generous sweep and places it on the center of the bed, dividing it in two. “Should I so much as lean your way, one nick with this blade and I am unlikely to survive it.”

I . . . “Why would you do this?”

“Because I am exhausted, and so are you.” He grabs a rag and soap from a washbasin and scrubs his arm, then dims the fire to asubtle glow. “And because you are not the only one with nightmares. Another presence in my room might benefit me, too.”

“Because this is the one night you are deprived of your usual company?” I hedge, making my way toward the bed, opting for the unruffled side. Tentatively, I peel back the covers.

I am decidedly unprepared when he shucks off his nightshirt, the hard cut of his chest glazed under a spill of moonlight. But the distance in his gaze brings me up short.

Guilt corrals me at that. Earlier this night, as long ago as it feels now, he had told me his brother made not one but several attempts on his life.

I know what it’s like to feel lonely and stifled by the dark.