---
The two of them pressed against the closed door, tangled together in the dark, warmth building between them like something long overdue finally catching fire. Her heartbeat, his heartbeat — impossible to tell them apart. Cedric was vaguely aware that he had never felt anything quite like this, and equally aware that he had stopped caring about the implications of that somewhere in the last several minutes.
He pulled back just enough to breathe and looked at her.
Rebecca's cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. The sight of her like that — undone, and because of him — did nothing to calm the heat still moving through his chest.
*How much longer is there? How far away can this moment still possibly be?*
He picked her up without thinking about it and carried her to the bed.
The distance between door and bedside passed without a single awkward moment — no hesitation, no misstep. Everything moved as though it had been rehearsed, as though his hands already knew exactly where to go. The thought crossed his mind distantly, with something like wonder: *has it never really been the first time?*
There was no room for reason to find a foothold. Not even a crack.
And then, finally, he was looking down at her against the pillows — and his heart was doing something it had apparently never done before, because he was genuinely startled by the force of it — and he reached for her again—
"Cedric."
He blinked.
"Aren't you going to move?"
Rebecca's voice. But the tone was wrong. Too flat. Too ordinary.
He looked at her. Her expression was not what it should have been. She was frowning slightly — and then, even as he watched, she reached up and gripped his shoulder and shook it with very little ceremony.
"Cedric. *Wake up.*"
The dream dissolved.
He opened his eyes to the interior of a carriage. The rocking of the wheels. The dark window. Rebecca sitting across from him, her brow furrowed, concern and impatience sharing approximately equal space on her face.
*I was just—*
He looked around. The carriage. Her. The completely mundane reality of where they actually were.
*No.*
His brow furrowed. A slow, deflating breath left him.
*I am a grown man.*
He pressed both hands over his face and lowered his head.
"Cedric, are you exhausted? You were completely dead to the world — I had to shake you for ages." Rebecca's voice softened slightly. "Do you have a headache? Did you have too much champagne? Let me look at you."
She leaned forward and reached for his hand.
"...I'm fine." He said it to the floor.
*She has no idea. That innocent, worried voice has absolutely no idea what it's doing to him right now.*
He raised his head — expressionless, composed, the way he had always been good at — and pulled his coat from the seat beside him and laid it across his lap with the casualness of a man simply adjusting his position.
"I won't be able to walk you to the door tonight," he said. "I'm tired. Go ahead."
"That's fine, but—" She tipped forward again slightly, examining his face. "You really don't feel ill? You seem..."
The gap between them narrowed. In his peripheral vision her lips moved as she spoke, and his mind — with spectacular and treacherous timing — played back what those lips had felt like not two hours ago. Warm. Unhurried. Better than he had known how to think about while it was happening.
"I'm not ill," he said, and looked at the window.
Rebecca regarded him for a moment longer with an expression that said she didn't entirely believe him, then straightened and got to her feet. She paused at the carriage door.
"Then I'll leave you to it." A beat. "I had a good evening, Cedric."
She stepped out. Walked toward the entrance without looking back. He watched her until the front door closed behind her.
Then he let out the breath he'd been holding.
"...God."
The memory rose again immediately, unbidden and detailed, and he shoved it back down with the grim efficiency of a man disposing of evidence.
*You have lost your mind, Cedric Twins.*
He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling.
He couldn't deny that something had shifted in how he felt about Rebecca — he'd been watching that shift for weeks now, aware of it with the same reluctant attention one gives to a problem that hasn't yet become urgent. The cold discomfort that used to accompany her presence had vanished. The mild pleasure of seeing her had crept in to replace it. He had told himself it was simply the result of their new footing — that now they were separated, at peace, building something like an uncomplicated friendship, they could finally be decent to each other. That was all it was.
*But I didn't dream about my friends.*
He pressed his fingers to his temple.
It was the kiss. That was the rational explanation. The kiss at the banquet had been — remarkable, in ways he had not anticipated and had not stopped thinking about since. His mind had simply built something out of it while his guard was down. That was all.
He told himself this two more times and found it slightly less convincing each time.
At least a few days of losing sleep seemed inevitable.
He resigned himself to it and told the driver to move on.
---
A few days after the Dmitri banquet, I found myself flushed with something I hadn't felt in a while.
*It's because I'm going out,* I told myself firmly. *Not because of who I'm going out with.*
I had gotten ready much faster than necessary — an observation I chose not to dwell on — and arrived in the first-floor lobby considerably ahead of the agreed time. I paced.
Then I heard it. A small sound, somewhere between a cry and a mew, from the direction of the reception room.
I turned.
The first thing I saw was the painting.
It occupied almost the entire wall — a large, dark forest at night, the kind of composition that feels vaguely wrong in a way you can never quite pin down. I had always disliked it without being able to explain why. I stood in front of it now with the same faint unease it always gave me.
*Why anyone would want something this cheerless hanging in their lobby...*
Then I noticed the cat.
It was sitting directly beneath the painting's frame — small, composed, watching me with an air of patient interest. Its fur was a warm, smooth brown. Its eyes were gold, and unusually clear. Its front paws were folded neatly together.
Something about it made me step closer without quite deciding to.
"Hello?"
The cat blinked at me. Slowly, consideringly. Then it rose, stretched, and walked toward me — sniffing the air first, then pressing the full length of its side against my leg.
I crouched down and let it smell my hand before scratching gently behind its ear. It began to purr at once, a low, steady vibration.
"Where did you come from?" I murmured. "You're very handsome, aren't you."
It looked up at me as though it understood the compliment and found it appropriate.
I reached to scratch under its chin — and that's when I saw the blood.
A dark stain on the fur of its lower abdomen. A wound, large enough that I couldn't understand how the animal was sitting calmly in front of me rather than hiding somewhere in pain.
"Where did you get hurt? Come here, let me—"
I stood quickly, already thinking through what I'd need—
"Your Highness?"
Adrian's voice, from the staircase.
I turned. When I turned back, the cat was gone.
The blood stain was gone too. The floor was clean.
I stood there for a moment and stared at the space where the animal had been.
*...Had I imagined it?*
"Your Highness." Adrian had reached me and was looking at my face with gentle puzzlement. "Are you all right?"
"There was a cat here just now."
"...I beg your pardon?"
He had the expression of someone deciding whether to be concerned.
I shook my head. "It's nothing. I'll explain later." I looked at him properly then, and found that he was smiling with a warmth that was hard to look at directly. "It's been three days since the banquet."
"It has." He kept his voice light, but something underneath it wasn't. "I was a little worried I might have said something that evening to make things awkward between us. When you didn't reach out as usual..."
"You didn't," I said. "It wasn't that."
He simply nodded, accepting it without pressing.
"I'm glad you remembered our arrangement and called on me," he said. "Truly."
There was a quietness in how he said it. I let it pass without comment.
"I did." I straightened up to business. "Were you able to get the information I asked for?"
The ease in his expression shifted — replaced with something more careful.
"Yes. Though I'm afraid the news isn't what you'd hoped."
He handed me a folded document.
I opened it and read. My brow drew slowly together.
"This wasn't their position yesterday."
"No. They appear to have doubled their investment in the last twenty-four hours."
I read the numbers again. Slowly.
"This surpasses what I had prepared to deploy."
"...It appears," Adrian said, gingerly, "that your financial position may have reached Camilla and Lord Henry's ears."
He paused.
"I must apologize, Your Highness. Though I genuinely cannot account for how it occurred. As you know, the half-blood staff bound to the Twins household cannot break their oath of secrecy — it's simply not possible."
"I know."
I folded the document and handed it back to him. Then I walked a few steps ahead, thinking, and stopped.
"It's all right, Adrian."
He looked at me uncertainly.
"Your Highness — if things continue this way, you may not be able to outmaneuver them. You could sustain real losses." He searched my face. "Are you certain you want to proceed?"
I turned and looked back at him.
"I'm certain." The corner of my mouth lifted. "Because I'm the one who let the information reach them."
Adrian stared at me.
I smiled and started walking again.
*The next part would require careful timing. But then — it always did.*
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