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“Is he looking this way?”
“Not right now. The parlor mistress just came out—she’s speaking to him.”
“Hide. Hide your face. He knows you too.”
Evemer buried his face in Kadou’s hair, as if he were kissing Kadou’s ear, probably the best he could do in the circumstances without scrambling to throw his scarves around his face again. “We shouldn’t have come.”
“Be still,” Kadou whispered back. “Stay calm. We can get out of this.”
“I shouldn’t have listened to you. I should have invoked disobedience the minute you wanted to change the plan. I should have hauled you back to my mother’s house and barred the door and nailed it shut.”
“Yes,” Kadou said. “Probably. And tied me to the kitchen chair and put me in the cellar and rolled Eozena on top of the trapdoor to hold it shut. But here we are, so calmdown.”
“There are a few people blocking the door. Talking, getting in the way. We’d have to elbow our way through them if we ran. There’s the back door. No windows. An upper floor—the stairs must be in the back.”
“Be. Still,” Kadou said, and at last, Evemer obediently froze. “You’re right. We leave, but slow and steady, like we haven’t noticed anything. This is not a moment to panic.”
“It is when someone could put your sultan in checkmate in one move.”
“I’m not your sultan and you don’t have to move me. Your sultan is up at the palace, surrounded by hundreds of kahyalar who Iknoware loyal to her, and you know it too. She will be fine.We’renot in check.Weare lesser pieces.” It wasn’t that he was unafraid—he was terrified—but he had an intimate and daily experience of fear that surely beat out anything Evemer had endured. In this moment, like the night of the attack, he found himself in control of his terror simply by dint of his familiarity with it. “Has he noticed us yet? Has he even glanced over?”
“No.”
“Just keep watching him for a moment. The people at the door?”
“Still there.Fuck,” Evemer said, and Kadou almost twitched in surprise. He’d never heard Evemer curse before. “Siranos looked over. I don’t know if he recognized me.”
Damn it all. “I will preface this by saying I’m very sorry.” A lie, a lie. Not a whole lie, but no better than a half truth. “Be still, please, and—I’m going to kiss your neck. It looks strange for us to just sit here—and if he’s watching—”
“Yes,” Evemer said without hesitation.
Kadou snarled at himself, at his fear-creature, at his recalcitrant mind, at his traitorous hands to behave themselves, to not give anything away. He would not permit himself to be untoward or ungentlemanly about this situation.
He brushed his mouth against the corner of Evemer’s jaw.
Evemer went tense all over—more tense.
Under his palm, he felt the pulse in Evemer’s neck stutter and quicken. Evemer let out his breath, slow and controlled, gusting into Kadou’s hair and warming his ear and neck. Kadou’s own heartbeat leapt in response.
Keep control,Kadou thought to himself.Think of Siranos looking over and wondering about you.He should see two people who were paying attention to nothing in the world but each other. He shouldn’t have even a moment of opportunity to wonder whether Evemer looked familiar.
But tightening his grip on the back of Evemer’s neck was not control; opening his mouth against Evemer’s neck was not control. He kept control. He did not do those things. With deliberate intent, he very, very carefully did not do either of those things.
But he couldn’t help the way he turned a little more toward Evemer, and his control had nothing at all to do with the way Evemer’s hand on the back of his waist tightened, gripping the fabric of his kaftan and sash.
Control, here in the private space between them. Control, here behind the fall of Kadou’s hair, with the humid heat of his breath and Evemer’s skin warming his face. To the rest of the room, it had to look like—well,something. It had to look like something whilebeingnothing.
Kadou brushed his lips, dry and closed, just under Evemer’s ear. Another, a little down his neck. Another, nosing just past his collar. It was the worst kind of torment, to be so close, to have his mouth just barely touching Evemer’sskin,and to have to stay mindful when all he wanted was to taste—just one little taste. Evemer’s hand flexed at his waist. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Any change? Did he look away?” Kadou whispered.
“Yes,” Evemer breathed. “But he’s turned toward us. Speaking to the parlor mistress. He’ll look up if we leave.” His pulse was still racing under Kadou’s hand.
“Like an animal that sees movement,” Kadou muttered. He felt Evemer shift as slowly as the turning tide, lifting his free arm, laying his hand on Kadou’s shoulder blade as if he wanted to hold Kadou close and safe. “We’re fine so far. We’re not in check.” Kadou laid another flat, chaste kiss to his skin, let it have a hint of real pressure rather than the previous, ghost-light imitations.
A very tiny thread of Evemer’s control snapped: he tipped his head a mere hairsbreadth away, the slightest baring of his neck.
Kadou couldn’t even tell himself that it was unconscious or unintentional. This wasEvemer. If he didn’t mean to move, then he didn’t move.
He closed his eyes. Another soft kiss, and Evemer’s chest swelled against him with a breath. His hand brushed up, his fingers sliding into Kadou’s hair at the back of his head, and Kadou felt his own breath leave him, slow andcontrolled.
