But it still helps to have bathed.

The lock in the dungeon door clicks, and in walks Nox.

I pick at my nails and try to look unimpressed.

I’m not sure I succeed.

He’s not wearing his usual robes—the ones with stains all up the hem of the sleeves. Instead, he’s donned a set of black slacks with a shirt and well-fitted coat to match.

Without the billowing robes obscuring most of his form, there’s no hiding the muscles packed onto a narrow build.

Black, white, and the blue of his eyes—the only hint of color against a monochromatic palette.

The shadows underneath his eyes have started to fade, and there’s a life to them I haven’t yet had the pleasure of witnessing.

He’s still Nox though, and his black hair still falls in his face. I find myself grateful that he can’t seem to pull himself completely together, either. We’re the same in that way, bonded not by an intricate knot, but a messy tangle.

Tangles get a poor reputation, but they’re difficult to unravel, and there’s something to be said for that.

Nox’s gaze fixes on me, scanning me from the crown of my braid to the tips of my toes.

He looks a bit dazed, and my cheeks heat when he doesn’t take his eyes off me as he uncorks his canister, his throat bobbing as he drinks.

“You stayed up,” he says, hooking the canister to his belt, and there’s a hesitancy in his voice that wasn’t there earlier, when he had me pinned to the very dais on which I sit.

It’s like he’s spent the afternoon pondering whether he overstepped, whether it’s a step he’s even capable of taking back.

It’s like our minds have been spiraling down the same path.

Nothing’s happened between us, but the passion, the longing that went taut between us earlier today, is almost worse.

“Well, it’s not like I had anything better to do,” I say, hopping down from the dais and looping my arm through his. “So what was it you wanted to show me?”

It takes us what feels like an hour to sneak through the castle undetected. Queen Abra doesn’t keep her castle overstaffed by any means, and the servants are few, but we still find them dusting busts in the corridors, carrying steaming pots of water down the staircases, and scuttling about the castle performing their chores.

Nox says it’s best if they don’t see us, though after they’ve passed, he always whispers in my ear their names, how they ended up in service to the queen, how many children they have and the names of each.

I wonder if they fear him as much as he loves them.

As we slink through the shadows, Nox’s hand firmly interlocked with mine, I can’t help but try to take in the beautiful veneer of my prison.

It’s stunning, this castle, in a sad sort of way. I can’t tell much by way of the coloring at night, except for the few tapestries the crescent moon lights up as it leaks through the windows, but from what I can tell, the whole place is outfitted in rich, dark colors.

It takes passing the third tapestry for me to recognize the golden-haired girl at the center of each.

They’re Gunter’s work, I realize. I want to stay and examine them, to witness the adventures Gunter has imagined for Nox’s sister. Still, I can’t help but notice the way Nox’s gaze seems to avoid them as we pad through the halls, so I let him lead me away without protest.

Dark-stained walnut seems to be the wood of choice for the furniture, along with red velvet for the cushions of the benches that line the hallways we pass.

The wood paneling of the flooring has a dark sheen to it, one that provides a glossy pathway for the moonlight to slide across.

As we slip through what looks to be the palace’s main corridor, Nox tugs at my hand, pulling me in close as he hides both of us behind a thick tapestry. Moments later, footsteps sound through the hall, but I can hardly hear them over the pounding of my heart, the feel of my back pressed to Nox’s chest, his firm stomach.

In a single fluid movement, he’s slipped his hand over my mouth—I suppose thinking I’d scream—the other wound around my waist, pulling me into him lest my figure make an indentation in the tapestry.

His touch glides to the notch of my hip, and my whole body trembles as he tucks his chin into the space between my shoulder and neck.

I think we both stop breathing.

When the footsteps fade, Nox releases me a handful of seconds later than he has to.

When his touch is no longer there, the memory of it still burns. At the arc of my hip, the curve of my spine, the bend in my neck.

Am I imagining it, or does he let out a sharp exhale after he gently pushes me away?

He steals another drink from his flask before taking me by the hand once again. Then he leads me up a winding staircase, one that’s hardly wide enough to fit two abreast. When I shoot him a questioning look, he gestures for me to go first, and I do.

The stairs themselves are narrow, too, not to mention uneven.

Once, I slip, and Nox catches me by the waist.

I come to wonder if this is what Nox wants to show me—not where this staircase leads, but the staircase itself, and with his arms wrapped around me like this, I let myself wonder what would happen if I only shifted to face him. But then Nox nudges me in the spine, and I realize I’ve paused for too long, and I scramble up the rest of the steps before I can let myself be too mortified.

When we reach the top, there’s a door that I figure should be locked but isn’t.

“Go ahead, open it,” Nox whispers, though not nearly as quietly as he did in the corridors. I guess he’s not expecting anyone to hear us in what appears to be an abandoned portion of the castle.

I unlatch the handle and push.

This time, it’s not Nox’s touch that steals my breath.

It’s the sky.

I decide I’ve never seen color before. Not truly. The peonies that decorated the palace gardens in Othian, the orange and pink hues of the fading sun, the lavish blues of the ornate wallpaper in Dwellen —all imitations. Impersonators, shadows of the real thing.

Because when I step out onto the rooftop veranda and gaze up at the heavens, it’s like tasting air for the first time.

Swaths of turquoise and fuchsia stretch across the sky, swirling together like acrobats flying high above a circus ring, winding their bodies together in perfect unison.

Even the stars are outmatched by their brilliance, fading into the background as if in quiet awe, gentle admiration of the colors that paint the heavens.

“What do you think?” Nox isn’t whispering anymore, but I can hardly hear him.

My eyes sting, welling with salty tears, and I resent them for it, for trying to obscure my vision of the most beautiful sight in all of Alondria.

“It’s…it’s glowing,” is about all I can muster, because it is, and I can’t fathom it. How it works. How the teal glow and fuchsia swirls don’t seem to be coming from anywhere, how they seem like a reflection with no source at all.

Like they simply exist with no origin.