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He wasn't calling me back.

He was only saying my name because he could.

By the time I reached the Great Hall, the party was already well underway.

Nobody had planned it. It had simply gathered momentum after the Council's black launch disappeared from the harbor without anyone from Ironmoor aboard. The long tables had been dragged back into the Hall, someone had found several barrels, and the Saltmere students had produced a crate of alarming green liquor they claimed they'd been brewing in the Baths since October.

By nine, nearly the entire school had packed itself inside.

The candles were burning again, music filled the Hall, and everyone seemed to be singing, shouting, or drinking from whatever container they had managed to get their hands on. A Solace boy was playing a fiddle near the hearth while a Bramblegate girl stood on one of the tables with a tin whistle, doing her best to keep up.

Tamsin was spectacularly drunk.

She was standing on a bench with one arm around my neck and a cup of the green liquor in her other hand, singing a song about a sailor and an otter that I was fairly sure she was inventing line by line. When she finally reached what she decided was the ending, she burst into tears, kissed me hard on the cheek, and announced that I was the best person she had ever met and that she would personally bite anyone who disagreed.

"Your dress," I said, leaning closer so she could hear me. "Tam, your only good dress. I ruined it. I'll get you another one, I swear. The first time I have any proper money—"

"Babe." Tamsin straightened with tremendous drunken dignity, although she was swaying badly enough that I tightened my arm around her waist. "You walked into the Pit in that dress. You stood at the altar in that dress. That dress has survived more than most marriages." She hiccupped. "Worth it. Every stitch. I'm having it framed."

Jax was dancing on a table.

Naturally.

His ribs were still healing, the bruising around his eye had faded to a sickly yellow-green, and Silas had specifically told him not to do anything stupid. Jax had apparently decided that dancing on the High Table in borrowed suit pants and no shirt did not qualify.

At least he was being careful about it.

Most of the movement was happening above the waist, and half of Solace was cheering him on anyway.

When he spotted me, he climbed down, immediately winced, laughed at himself, and came across the Hall. He took both of my bandaged hands in his and kissed the backs of them.

"I owe you a dress," he said with a grin, keeping his voice low enough that only I could hear. "One ribbon at a time. With my teeth. I promised." Then he sighed with exaggerated disappointment. "But unfortunately, raincheck, reina. I've been informed, very firmly, that tonight belongs to someone else."

Heat climbed into my face. "Jax—"

"No, no. It's fair."

He glanced across the Hall at Silas, who was sitting at the end of a bench beside Marion and appeared to be undergoing an interrogation about his intentions.

"He held for fifteen minutes with the Red at his throat and five ferals trying to kill him," Jax said. "I'd give the man almost anything after that." His grin sharpened. "Even you. For one night."

Before I could answer, he reached into the inside pocket of the suit jacket hanging over his shoulder and pulled something out.

He opened his hand.

A leaf lay in his palm, copper-gold and dry, the edges slightly crumpled from being carried around. I recognized it immediately. It had come from the Hollow Wood.

From my hair.

"Evidence," Jax said softly. "Told you."

I only looked toward the doors once.

I knew he wasn't coming. I knew exactly where I had left him, sitting alone on the cliff above the sea.

Still, even in the middle of the shouting and music, I could feel him through the bond. It was faint at that distance, but steady.

He wanted to be alone tonight.