Page 105 of Smoke, Mirrors, & Misdemeanours

Ark made a rough sound. “He was a fool.” His voice was low and absolute. “In case no one’s told you that clearly enough.”

Something inside her unclenched. She exhaled—the breath shuddering on its way out. She’d always known Zakey was wrong. Hearing Ark say it only cemented the truth even more. She let the words fall away, as empty as they’d always been.

They continued walking. She nudged his arm with her elbow, surprised by how easy the teasing felt. “And you? Any grand heartbreaks of your own?”

He smiled and shrugged. “I’ve never had one.”

She shot him a narrow look. He chuckled, but his eyes drifted away.

“I just handed you the most embarrassing chapter of my life,” she said. “You’re not getting away this time.” She nudged him again. “Tell me your most profound heartbreak. And it doesn’t have to be romantic either.”

He hesitated. Then: “Not quite a heartbreak. More like a long, dull ache.”

She turned to look at him properly. That wasn’t the kind of answer one could shrug off.

“Tell me,” she said softly.

His jaw tightened. “You already know the half of it.”

“Then give me the other half.”

“My father,” he said. The word landed with a wince on his lips, the pained expression on his face ricocheting through her chest. They stopped. He looked away, as though he couldn’t bear to be seen.

“He’s been absent for so long, I started to think it was my fault—that if I’d just done more, or been more, he’d have seen me. Not as his heir. Not as his replacement. Just as his son.”

Her chest ached—not just for him, but for the girl she used to be. The one who had stood beside a hospital bed, holding hope like a fragile thing, watching it slip through her fingers. She knew that kind of waiting. That kind of wishing.

“Ark,” she whispered. “Your father is alive, isn’t he?”

He didn’t answer, but his silence was enough.

“There’s still time for you two to change this. If my own father was still alive, I’d⁠—”

But the rest wouldn’t come. Her voice snagged on the sharp edge of something she didn’t let herself feel too often. That hollow, pulsing grief. That fury at the world for being unfair. The ache of all the things she hadn’t gotten to say.

She looked away, blinking fast. She’d spent years patching those emotions into something manageable. But tonight, beside him—walls down, heart bare—they threatened to break through.

Then he was there.

His hand came up, cupping her cheek—warm, steady, sure. She inhaled sharply, her gaze snapping back to him just as he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers.

His mouth moved with a quiet, devastating intensity that bypassed thought entirely. Hers answered like it had been waiting for this—no, needing this—and in that moment, she understood how starved she’d been for a touch that didn’t demand, only offered. As if he were saying: ‘Let me hold this for you. Just for a moment. Let me be the place where it doesn’t hurt.’

A sound caught in her throat. Her fingers curled into his coat, pulling him closer. The kiss deepened—lush, breathless—and she leaned into him, into the warmth and weight of his body, the steadiness of his hands: one still on her cheek, the other at the small of her back, anchoring her like she might break apart.

And maybe she would. If he let go.

It had started to rain sometime in the last few minutes, but she didn’t care. His lips, his body against her kept her warm, secure. The world had gone quiet around them—only the faint hiss of raindrops against stone and the unsteady sound of their breathing.

When they parted, she didn’t move away. Neither did he.

“We started with a simple alliance, didn’t we?” she finally said. There was no point pretending anymore. “How did it become . . . all of this?”

Ark was silent for a moment, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. “It didn’t ‘become’ anything. It was always here, waiting for us to stop pretending it wasn’t.”

A sharp ache swelled in her chest. She reached for him again. He met her halfway. Their foreheads brushed first, as if something inside them needed that one last pause before surrendering.

“Come home with me?” she asked.