His throat bobbed, and he tore his gaze away from me, staring up at the ceiling like he was trying to glimpse the stars through the wood and curse me silently. “You didn’t ask.”

Fates, why was it always like this with us? One of us reaching out to the other, only for the words to come out wrong and to be met with a wall lacking footholds, too slippery to climb.

“You shouldn’t have entered into that bond with her.” Again, not how I meant to say it. I’d always prided myself on my ability with words, so why, when Evander was around, did everything come out the opposite of how I planned it?

His jaw worked, the only evidence of his temper flaring. “Why can’t you just say thank you for once?”

My mind raced back to the glass shop, the fight we’d had then. This was the same one, wasn’t it? Him thinking I should be grateful for something I didn’t want in the first place. Perhaps it was for the best that he’d be wedding someone else. Let that be the final wedge between us, saving us both from a life of misery, playing out our irreconcilable differences for the rest of my mortal life.

But then again.

Then again.

I hadn’t wanted him to, but he had bargained his freedom away to save my life. Twice.

It was hard to tell the difference between shame and gratitude sometimes.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

He darted his gaze away from me, his green eyes gleaming.

“I’m sorry,” I said. For what you’ve given up. For what happened to us.

A pained smiled flickered on his face. “I’d do it again, if it meant you were safe.”

My breath hitched before I could catch it, and his ears flicked, his gaze darting to my mouth, to where my breath fogged the air.

He didn’t look away.

A moment later, and he’d closed the gap between us. I gasped, backing away until my hips hit the workshop table. He advanced on me, pinning me, his eyes alight with fire.

Heat coursed through me as his gaze dipped to my lips.

“We can’t do this,” I breathed, my voice ragged and unconvincing.

A sly smile slipped across his face. “On the contrary: you’re the only woman I can do this with.”

Lightning enveloped me, coursing through my veins and stirring to life every feeling I’d tried so desperately to suppress over the past month.

I shook my head. “You’re going to have to marry her come full moon. You were too specific. There’s no way out of this.”

“Well, then,” he said, his gaze drunk on my mouth. “I suppose since you’ve somehow managed to change me into an honorable male, now’s our only chance, isn’t it?”

He leaned into me, so close the slim distance between us physically hurt. “You don’t understand,” I breathed.

He frowned, taking my jaw between his fingers and lifting my gaze to meet his. “Then enlighten me.”

“I can’t let myself have you, not even for a moment, not even just a kiss, because…” I sucked in a breath. With each word, it was as if another one of my ribs cracked.

“Why not?” His voice was a whisper on the edges of my ear as he buried his face into my hair.

“Because…” Fates, I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t make myself say it. Why, after all we’d been through, did this feel like the thing that would suffocate me, steal the air from my lungs and be my undoing?

“Ellie.” His breath stung at my ear, sending a fire through me, one I wouldn’t soon be able to put out. “Why can’t you kiss me.”

Not a question.

I steadied myself on the table, dizzy now. “Because it’ll break me. Because I can’t…I can’t have you for just a moment. If I’m going to have you, I have to have all of you. Forever. I can’t have you then give you to someone else, I just…”

“Why not?”

I pushed him away from me, shoving his chest with such force, the shock of it alone was enough to have him stumbling a few steps back.

He stood there, hands by his sides, looking intoxicated.

I was trembling, and his eyes honed onto my shaking legs. He was back upon me in a moment, though this time, he didn’t touch me.

“Why not?” he pushed.

I didn’t answer.

“Why. Not.”

“Because I love you, okay?”

The words hung in the hot air we shared between us, between his ragged breaths and my short, staccato ones.

He froze, a sly, infuriating grin overtaking his face, and I almost thought he’d tease me, but then he said, “Please let me kiss you, Ellie.”

“What? No! I tell you I love you and you…and you…” What was he doing, grinning like a giddy, smug little child?

“I’m afraid I might have omitted a bit of important information earlier.”

My heart stopped. “What are you talking about, Evander?”

“You see, I have no intention of marrying anyone but you.”

I couldn’t breathe. “I saw you make the bargain. I saw you…I heard you…”

He tucked his hand into his pocket, and for a moment I thought it was just another one of his I-don’t-care-about-anything stances, but then he whipped out the paper he’d stuffed into his pocket, the one the palace soldier had brought him. “Shall I read it aloud, or should you?”

Apparently, I looked like I was in no position to read anything aloud, because he said, “Very well, then.

I, Evander, Heir and Prince of Dwellen, declare my intent to marry Cinderella and request permission from my father, the King of Dwellen, to do so. By doing so, I transfer all right of requesting who to marry to him, and declare any bargains I make without his permission void.”

He turned the paper around, and my breath caught.

In big, gaping letters, in the king’s handwriting, the paper clearly stated,