Page 133 of Kingmakers, Year One

Smiling at me, he says, “I’ve never felt better in my life.”

Dr. Cross clears his throat, wanting me to leave so he can get back to sleep.

“I’ll come back in the morning,” I promise Leo.

“You better,” he says.

I leave the infirmary with my heart soaring.

My senses are heightened to a fever pitch. I can feel every single raindrop bursting on my skin. It’s cool and effervescent, like I’m swimming through soda. The grass smells fresh andalive, and even the limestone walls of the castle seem to give off the scent of the ancient ocean in which they were formed.

I can still taste Leo on my lips. I can still feel his strong, warm fingers gripping the back of my neck.

I’m floating weightlessly over the ground. If I were to go to the cathedral to dance right now, I think I could give the best performance of my life. I think I could literally fly.

Without thinking I turn in that direction, crossing the dark campus mostly by memory.

I force open the heavy double doors, stepping into the space that I haven’t visited in weeks, because I’ve been too heavy and depressed.

It’s pitch-black in here. I find the candles I left stowed in the old altar and fumble with the matches that have grown damp from the humidity and the rain. The first two matches break, but the third sparks alight, and I light a half-dozen of the uneven and heavily-melted pillar candles I stole from the Keep.

I set the candles all around the nave, and then strip off my sodden camisole and pants so I’m only wearing my underwear. It doesn’t matter, there’s no one to see me.

I have no speaker, but I don’t care about that, either. I can clearly hear the music playing in my head: “Love Chained,” the song that I know so well that it plays in my dreams.

The moment I start to dance I feel that lightness again, that sense of lifting, floating, soaring across the stone. My brain and body separate, so I can almost watch myself dancing, whirling, spinning, dipping, while my mind is free to float around the cavernous space, untethered from the earth.

I missed this almost as much as I missed Leo.

I understand now that they’re connected—dancing is my way to connect with my deepest thoughts and emotions. And most of those center around Leo. When I was trying to deny my feelings for him, I couldn’t dance at all.

Even this song . . . my favorite song . . . it was always about him.

I’m chained to Leo. I am and I always have been. We’ve been bound together since birth. Even when we die, the atoms of him and the atoms of me will find each other.

I dance until sweat runs down my skin like the raindrops sliding down the stained-glass windows overhead.

Then I sink down on the floor of the church, listening to my heart beat in the echoing silence.

The candles have burned down to stubs, the flames drowning in the last pools of melted wax. It must be two or three o’clock in the morning—the witching hour. The time when almost everyone in the castle will be asleep.

Leo will certainly be asleep in his infirmary cot, his body trying to heal after the repeated damage it took today.

I can almost see his face glowing in the candlelight before me. I want to see it in person, even if only for a moment. I want it immediately and intensely.

Snatching up my soggy clothes, I slip out of the cathedral once more.

Every window in the castle is dark, not a single sound to be heard over the relentless rain.

Oh—actually, that’s not true. There is one light burning high up in the attic of the library tower. Up in Miss Robin’s room. She must be reading, unable to sleep.

Her light feels friendly to me, as if she lit it just to help me find my way across the dark grounds.

It’s a long way back to the infirmary past the dovecote, the bakehouse, the stables and the old wine cellar.

As I’m nearing the dining hall, I see something strange: Hedeon Gray, descending down into the Undercroft where the Spies have their dorms. I’m sure it’s him, because he’s wearing the same shirt that was torn in the fight.

Why is Hedeon going down there?

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