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“Remind me again.” The breath of his words flurried up against my throat in a phantom kiss. “Why we can’t.”

The thrum of my specter gained speed against his fingers, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. “Because Rheya forbade it,” I whispered.

“Rheya’s not here.” Keil’s voice was a deep rumble. His palm journeyed down toward my knee again, his calluses grazing my skin. “Give me a better reason.”

“She would find out.”

“A better reason.”

“We can’t risk—” A soft gasp swallowed my sentence as he finally tugged me down, and I hit the padded seat between his thighs.

My hands dropped around the back of his neck automatically, my face landing inches from his. I was breathing heavily, strands of my hair stirring with the movement, and Keil’s free hand lifted to tuck those strands behind my ear.

“A better reason, my lady,” he murmured. His gaze devoured me, his hand lingering around my cheek. “I only ask for one.”

Yet with Keil’s skin warming mine, I couldn’t bring myself to name another. Because didn’t we both need this—a moment to forget about the Hunters and Erik and the compass? A moment to exist only as two people who kept fighting the pull toward each other and who, for just one moment in this little halo of golden lantern light, wanted to lose the fight?

My muscles went loose with my next exhale, and he shifted his thigh, allowing me to settle more fully onto his lap. Fluid vines of his specter threaded through the heavy waves of mine, and my breath caught at the sweet intimacy of the sensation. At the way he’d adapted to the new thickness of my power, as though he would gladly commit himself to learning every contour if only I granted him the time.

“Is it strange?” I breathed. “Feeling the specter of someone you’d always thought of as a Wholeborn?”

“No.” His thumb traced circles against my cheek, his other hand settling around my hip. “It feels like you. Powerful. Warm.” His specter laced more fully through mine, working out the tensest, solid knots of my power. I sighed against his lips, and his thumb glanced over my mouth as though to catch the sound. “Still so beautiful,” he whispered reverently.

As his grip turned more solid around my hip, drawing me farther into him, my fingers made their own journey down toward his bare chest.

I swayed closer, lips almost brushing his, the air between us growing charged with anticipation—

Until my palm brushed the edge of his bandage.

And the sensation of ice water sent my body clenching.

Keil felt the change in me. His hand stilled on my hip; his thumb withdrew to hover over my mouth. He didn’t rush me or attempt to pull me out of my descent into clarity—but instead watched me with something like pained understanding as I slowly exhaled.

Because that bandage was a reminder of the ways we were making each other vulnerable. A reminder that Rheya had been right: If Keil and I didn’t sever whatever bond had formed between us, we were only setting ourselves up for failure at Banarrat. I was setting myself up to get caught all over again.

Back in my chambers, I’d decided that I could no longer afford to be reckless.

And this, right now, was reckless.

I slowly reached up, brushing a strand of gold-brown hair from where it had drifted over his brow. “I can’t,” I said quietly, and that was reason enough.

Keil’s eyes fluttered shut. Because he knew what I’d meant. That while I wanted this, wanted him . . . I couldn’t risk what might happen if I let myself fall.

Before I could fully pull away, Keil captured my fingers. My heart panged as he pressed a parting kiss to my knuckles, stealing one more second of lingering contact before he withdrew. A moment later, our specters withdrew, too.

I stood and stepped back, angry at myself both for getting carried away and for not getting carried far enough.

Keil cleared his throat and opened his desk drawer, withdrawing a golden, two-pronged hairpin, whose handle oddly speared out to form a ruby-studded key. He stood, and I had to avert my gaze from his bare torso again.

“For you,” he said.

I frowned at the uniquely shaped pin. “I didn’t know we were exchanging gifts.”

A little smile twitched at his mouth. “It’s a master key. It’ll get you back into your room. Into any room at this estate, if you wish.”

I lifted my gaze, my stomach flipping at the magnitude of his offer. Keil must have known that the dullroot-filled locks in this empire would make me feel trapped. And while he couldn’t open every door in Ansora for me . . . he could open every door in his house.

“Thank you,” I breathed, taking the key.