Page 108 of A Court Bright and Broken

All of the drawings were excellent, page after page of beautiful work. I recognized the marketplace thieves, thefishmonger. On the next page there was a drawing of me at the ball–or should I say, of “Lady Wyn.”

“Who is this?” I asked.

Stellon shook his head. “No one. Just one of the women at the ball. She’s of no consequence.”

For some reason, his answer pleased me. I’d been assuming he was still pining for his missing intended. Maybe he was and just didn’t want to discuss it, but he sounded so dismissive about her.

Then I turned the page, and my breath whooshed out in shock. It was a drawing of me, wearing the dress I’d worn to the Rough Market. Flipping through several more pages I saw more drawings of me.

Many more.

I looked up at Stellon, who was biting his lip again.

“You didn’t do these at the market,” I said. “You must have sketched them later. How did you draw them without a model to look at?”

He hesitated, looked away toward the window, then let his gaze return to me. His expression was etched with uncertainty.

“I did them when I got home. I’d never drawn from memory before—didn’t even know that I could. But I rememberedyourappearance so well… every detail.”

My heart began thumping so loudly I worried he’d hear it.

He apparently didn’t notice because he continued. “I didn’t want to lose those details to time. I found you so… beautiful… and I wanted something to look back on. To remember.”

Now that he’d mentioned it, I noticed these pages in particular were rather dog-eared. Had he turned to them and looked at them again and again?

The thumping shifted into a scattering of frenzied beats.

Though my own memory had returned often to our meeting that day, I’d assumed “Sam,” the High Fae lord, would have forgotten all about me.

Now it seemed he’d been thinking about me too.

“Stellon,” I whispered, not sure what I wanted to say.

“I’d never met anyone like you,” he said softly. “So kind. Sogood. And I still have never seen a more beautiful woman.”

“But…” I was at a total loss for words.

Stellon was surrounded by otherworldly looking women all the time, particularly now during the Assemblage. Lady Wyn had been ten times more attractive than I was.

Hehadto be just saying that for some reason, but his voice and his eyes were so sincere.

As he talked, he’d been leaning steadily closer. Now our faces were only inches apart. He stroked my cheek with the back of one hand.

“I lost faith in the gods long ago,” he said. “But seeing you again has restored it. I don’t know how else to explain you being here like this.”

A guilty tremor raced up my spine. The gods hadn’t sent me here. Sorcha had—to kill him.

Such a thing seemed unthinkable now that I knew him.

Stellon’s face eased even closer as his fingers slid beneath my chin and tipped it up so that our lips were aligned.

“Raewyn,” he whispered, and my lips tingled at the touch of his warm breath. “I would very much like to—”

Loud rapping at the door interrupted whatever he was about to say.

Stellon turned his head over his shoulder and yelled at the door. “Go away. I am still abed.”

“I don’t doubt that,” answered a voice I recognized as belonging to Pharis. “The question is, withwhom?”

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