“Usually when people offer help, it’s because they have expertise.”
Kestrel feigned looking thoughtful. “Huh. I’ll try to remember that next time. You, on the other hand, seem to be great at this.”
Curse this girl, and curse Elora, for the way her heart seemed to flutter at the ever-beaming smile Kestrel flashed her.
“When is the wedding?”
That question cooled her down a bit.
“A few days’ time,” she said stiffly.
“By the Hollows, that’s soon.” She bit her lip before mustering another sheepish grin. “Well, I guess it’s lucky for you then that you’re better at this than I am.”
Elora barked a haughty laugh.
It made Kestrel’s smile grow, as if she was imbued with sunshine. “Well, at least I got you to laugh. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you do that before.”
The unfortunate truth was that she was almost right. Elora couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed genuinely, at least before having met the princess.
Doing her best to deflect the comment, Elora rolled her eyes. “This is utterly useless. I thought you said you’d danced before.” She waited for Kestrel’s reply. When she didn’t, she started to become concerned. “You have danced before, right?”
Kestrel groaned. “Alright, fine. I may have overstated the truth a little.”
“How much is a little?”
The lost princess winced, still trying to keep up with Elora’s footwork. “Like…one time?”
“One time!” Now it was Elora’s footing that faltered. “Whenwas this? And what dance, because I’m not convinced you know the footwork for any.”
Kestrel still wore a pathetic but playful grimace as she looked down at Elora with her emerald green eyes. “Last night? And I’m not sure what the dance was—to be honest, I didn’t know there were different types.”
Something tightened around Elora’s chest then, a twinge she tried ignoring. Had this dance happened before the gardens, or after? Not that it mattered to her, any.
Elora straightened her back and continued the dance, leading Kestrel along the way as best as she could. But it was like dancing with a newborn calf. The poor girl was all gangly limbs and too-slow toes.
“With whom?” Elora asked, trying and failing to keep the tightness from her words.
“Oh, just Micah. Their brother Nic was playing music on some instrument, and the twins were dancing up on the table. Micah pulled me up to join them. But to be honest, it was nothing really like this.”
Relief washed over her. At least it wasn’t with Leighton. For multiple reasons, that made her feel better.
Elora was much more relaxed when she said, “That’s not how a princess is expected to behave. You can’t just go dancing up on tables whenever you’re beckoned.”
“Why not?”
Elora guffawed. “What do you mean why not? Because! It’s—you—that’s just not how things are done.”
Kestrel shrugged, a coy tilt to her smile. “Maybe it should be.”
Elora’s mouth fell agape. She was too stunned—no, too flabbergasted to have a retort.
“What?” Kestrel laughed. “I’m just saying, I had fun. I see nothing wrong with that.”
Releasing her hand, Kestrel used her fingertips to tap Elora’s jaw closed. Then she grabbed her hand again and leaned to the side, as if she was trying to resume their dancing. But Elora was frozen in place. Not only by the gentle but calloused touch of Kestrel’s fingers upon her chin, but also by the reality of their conversation.
These two girls, they came from different worlds. One, a place that had taught the Ashen princess that life was a brutal game of deceit and strategy, with both a winning side and losing side—and Elora had been born to the losing team. While the other had come from a place that had sheltered her, allowed her space to follow her whims, to make her own rules, and helped her develop the belief that life could be filled with joy if she just believed it so.
One of those worlds was reality. The other, a falsehood that could get someone killed.
