Etta dove into the forest after them, the dagger in her hand. It was just like the attack in Russia. The attacker was shrouded in black, and the blade was pressed against Julian’s throat, even as he struggled to disentangle himself from the powerful grip. She was a step behind the attacker, and drew her blade back to stab—
The weight hit Etta’s back and brought her down before she could catch Julian’s attacker, but it was the mountain itself, its sharp decline, that sent her rolling, spinning over the soft earth and ferns, until finally her back collided with a tree big enough to catch her weight. The blow knocked the dizziness from her mind, enough that she ignored the bruising she’d taken and climbed back onto her knees, searching for Julian in the darkness above her. A short distance away, tangled in the ferns and obscured by the small stone marker, were the twisted, white-robed legs of her own attacker.
Etta scrambled up the hill on hands and feet, the blade of her dagger clenched between her teeth until the ground flattened out enough for her to stand. She swung around the edge of the stone marker, her gasping breaths steaming the inside of her mask. At the very last second, rather than stab with her right hand, she threw her left fist forward, smashing into the attacker’s mask and knocking them flat on their back just as they made to rise. She dropped to her knees on their chest, ripping their mask off and bringing the blade up to their jugular.
She knew this face.
She loved this face.
“Oh my God,” Etta gasped, flying back, pulling her own mask up. “Oh my God—”
His eyes widened, equally stunned by the sight of her.
Her hands sank into the dirt, shaking. She pulled up leaves and roots, trying to ground herself in that moment, to make it feel real to her. That valley between them that had devastated her with his absence, the one she hadn’t let herself fall into, opened up again.
One single, soft word reached her: “Hi.”
Etta’s heart broke open, and the relief was as painful as it was necessary. The way he looked at her now, like she was a pearl in the darkness; the way his hand reached for her, waiting for her hand, its twin—she crashed into him just as he sat up, her lips on his, stealing his breath, his surprised laughter. Stealing him back into herself.
“Hi,” she managed, her hands cupping his face, kissing him, kissing him—
“Where…have you been?” he asked when he could.
“Where have you been?” she demanded back, feeling his hands sink into her braid, weaving sweetness into it.
“I’ve been quite occupied…with looking for you,” he said. “Had a…damned time of it. I might have known you’d find me first.”
“Saw you—the beach—” She tasted blood from his split lip, but she didn’t care, she didn’t care—
“I know, I know—thought you were—”
“I know, I’m sorry—why did you chase me now? Why are you here?” Etta forced herself to stop, to pull back and wrap her arms around him so he’d have the opportunity to answer. His arm came up to lock around her waist, and his forehead rested against her shoulder; he was breathing hard.
“Are we incapable of meeting under remotely typical circumstances?” Etta heard him wonder. The damp ground was soaking through her robe, straight to her skin, but she hardly felt it. Nicholas’s pulse was fluttering against her cheek, nothing at all like the steady, driving beat she remembered from even their most desperate moments.
It was the darkness, she was sure of it—it was only the hunger, the exhaustion, and the shadows that made him look so frail. But when her hands skimmed over his back, she felt each knob of his spine. The ridges of his ribs. Etta leaned back so she could brush a half-open kiss against his lips, his labored breathing mingling with hers.
“I can’t even hold you,” he whispered. “It’s too much, it’s all too fast—I wasn’t afraid before, but I find myself—I find myself just that slightest bit afraid now.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, trying to shift so she could study him, see his face. He only held her tighter, his arm shaking with the effort. Her hands came up to slide through his tufts of hair, and his scalp was warm against her palms. Nicholas strained to kiss her again, his mouth grazing the soft corner of her lips.
“—I was just going for whoever looked to be about my—” Sophia’s voice said behind them.
“I am not your size!” That was Julian.
“Well, would you prefer I said I went for whoever looked easiest to take down?”
She heard Sophia and Julian approach, felt the moment they were seen. The silence that followed was its own century.
“What are you still doing here?” Sophia aimed the words at Nicholas, coating them with anger. “He’s going to notice you’re gone if you don’t hurry back.”
“Thought she—that Etta was—someone who could—hurt you—”
It was difficult to piece together the soft fragments of his words. Her mind did the best it could: Sophia had unwittingly snared Julian to steal his robes for the auction, and, seeing a disguised Etta pursue them, Nicholas had panicked, worrying that Sophia wouldn’t be able to fight two people at once.
“Why are you—?” Etta asked. “Tell me what’s happening—Nicholas!”
The cold wash of fear as he sagged against her was nothing compared to the hurricane that came with Sophia’s sharp oath. She leaped over the fallen tree that stood between them and seized Nicholas’s shoulders, giving him a hard, jaw-snapping shake.