I frown at her and follow her pointing to where my brother is working his way across the middle of the floor, surrounded by people who are spinning in the palpitating swell of the song, red and blue ballgowns flying and jewel-toned suitcoats lustrous—
The drain of emotion, the crash after the adrenaline, the burn of grief—my body forgets how to feel any of it. There is a sudden, splendid absence like city lights going dark to show the full vastness of a diamond-studded night sky and I am not tired, I am not lost, I am not broken, because the sight on that dance floor demands everything in my body reknit itself.
Iris presses into me. “I was going to go see him. I had a whole speech prepared and Kris wanted to come so he could tell Hex how pissed he was, but before I could leave, he was here. He showed up in my suite this morning—”
I whip my eyes to her. “He’s been heresince this morning?”
“—and asked us how he could make things right. He didn’t want to get in the way once we told him what was happening, but the point is, Coal, he came back for you. He chose you.”
“Iris,” I gasp her name. I think I do. My voice sounds garbled.
I catch sight of Hex and lose him again as the dancers spin. He and Kris are trying to get to us, but Hex’s gaze meets mine and he stops.
His black-lined eyes shift over me, even with the distance. He doesn’t smile. I can see him holding his reaction for mine, that infuriating control he has over his responses, and a strand of black hair hangs out of his knot, brushing across his cheek. It flutters in an exhale.
“Go,” Iris tells me, but I’m already walking, the dancers passing around me like vapor.
In and out, bodies pirouette between us, and each time I think they’ll move on and he’ll be gone. I’ll blink, and he’ll vanish, but then I reach him, and he’s here, his chest rising in a sharp, shaking intake of breath.
Kris ducks away with a smile.
He’s in a bright cherry-red suit, a riot of color, with a black shirt under it, the balance of Halloween and Christmas, and he has those rings on his fingers and the glint of silver piercings on his ear. He’s here and we’re standing in the middle of the dance floor and the orchestra drags violins in a crooning wail.
His lips part, but he says nothing, and I want to fill the silence but I know silence is an offering for him. So I just watch his eyes dip down my body again, and I feel the trip when his focus catches on my hand—on his ring still on my thumb.
A tremble shakes his parted lips.
Finally, he says over the music, “I was at that bar to see you.”
I frown, head cocking.
“The bar. Where we met. I went there—” He huffs a breath, one that’s fighting against a tremor. “It was the first anniversary of Raven’s death. I couldn’t sit at home.”
My eyes widen, but before I can say anything, he looks up at me and pushes on, talking faster.
“I went because I knew you would be there, from the tabloids, and I wanted to see what kind of person you really were. I wanted you to be as bad as your father so I could point at you and say,Look, Raven wouldn’t have gotten what she wanted no matter who was in charge of Christmas.I was so angry, and it was senseless, and I neededsomeoneto be mad at. But you were—” He gasps, throat bobbing. “You were nothing like I wanted you to be. You haven’t been, this whole time. You’ve been likeher,and I think I—no. I know I started to fall in love with you in that alley.”
“Hex,” I whisper. He doesn’t hear me.
“And you were right. I put those restrictions on myself, onus,because I could not fathom that falling for you had happened so fast. Butyou,Coal. You, with your light and laughter and joy. You, with your honor, that infecting honor, and your devotion. Somehow, I got to be the object of that honor and devotion, and it stunned me, still stuns me, that you look at me the way you do. I’m so sorry that I didn’t trust myself to choose you—”
“Hex,” I say, louder, and his lips snap shut, those wide eyes holding on mine. “I would never keep you from doing what you feel you need to do for Halloween. I would never ask you to choose between us and your role. I know how much it means to you, and it’s one of the things I love most about you, your big heart and your bigger sense of purpose. My god, Hex, I’d sooner expect you to stop breathing than to make any concession that would jeopardize the joy Halloween brings. It’syou,and I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”
He shakes his head. “That’s just it. It’s fine, I think, to make some concessions for myself. I am still getting my bearings with letting myself have more than Halloween, but I promise, I will learn how to fight for”—his voice catches—“for the man I love too.”
My reaction surges through me and I only barely stop myself, a near painful lurch of remembering we’re in a crowded ballroom and there are reporters watching.
But Hex steps closer and angles up and asks, mouthing the words,Kiss me.
My lungs are too thick and my heart is beating too fast. “It’ll be out. You and me. What will the autumn collective think of you with the Christmas Prince?”
His eyes shift through mine. “They might hate it. Or they might see what you’ve done in starting your own form of equality here, and be all right with it. Either way, this isn’t about them, or Halloween, or Christmas. It’s about you and me, and we’ll deal with whatever happens together. So now,” he steps closer, imploring, “I want you to kiss me.”
But he hesitates. Just a fraction, and something like uncertainty darts across his face.
“I understand, though, if you haven’t forgiven me for leaving,” he says, voice resolved. “I shouldn’t have pushed, and if I—”
I groan, and laugh, and it all gets tangled up inneed.“I swear to god, Hex, the two of us have officially discovered that there is such a thing as beingtoorespectful of each other, and itwillkill me.”
