“I’m going to see to Sebrina.” Jost looks at me and then at his brother. The two share a very serious nod. Have they perfected an entire secret code while we’ve been apart?

“We created some bunkers in abandoned offices. You can sleep there,” Dante says to me.

Dante leads me up a narrow flight of stairs and Erik trails behind us. Dante stops at a door and gives Erik and me an appraising look as he opens it. “I think I’m supposed to give you a lecture or something. As your father.”

“About?” I ask, moving inside the room.

He laughs at me, and it hits me.

“Oh.”

“You two should talk.” Dante turns to leave, looking back once but finally throwing his hands up in the air, and mumbling to himself as he leaves Erik and me alone.

The door shuts too slowly behind him. Erik’s arms are around me immediately, pulling me in to him. The distance I felt before is gone, replaced by urgency.

“I thought—” Then his lips cover mine.

Erik breaks away, his hands cradling my back. “You thought I’d changed my mind?” he guesses.

I nod, suddenly overcome by emotion that creeps hot up my throat, moving toward my eyes. I can’t hold it back and it spills onto my cheeks. Erik brushes away my tears, kissing my cheeks where the tears fell.

“Never,” he says in a quiet voice. “I was trying to be … professional.”

“Professional? That’s new,” I say a bit too coldly.

“When my brother is around, I don’t want to upset him. He’s lost a lot. I had to focus on helping him rescue Sebrina. I owed him that.”

“You’re being thoughtful,” I realize out loud. Of course our feelings for each other would threaten whatever peace Erik and Jost have found in my absence.

“But I hurt you.” Erik’s hands fall away from me, and I miss his touch immediately.

“No, I understand,” I say, shaking my head as the petty anger I felt minutes before releases me. “I should have known what you were trying to do.”

We linger for a moment in silence, neither of us sure what to say. But I can feel the pulse of my heart throbbing through my blood, stirring me to life, willing me to close the space between us. Erik and I were friends for a long time, but this is new. We’re still learning how to be together and what we’re willing to share with the rest of the world.

“While they were talking about strategies,” Erik says, taking a strand of my hair in his fingers, “I could only think about kissing you.”

I try to hold back the smile that jumps to my lips, but I can’t, not entirely.

“Unfortunately, the strategy room isn’t the place to make up for lost time,” he says, a smile curving onto his face.

“We’re not there now,” I remind him.

He doesn’t need any more incentive. The bunker’s emergency lights flicker around us and with one smooth motion Erik flips the generator switch, flooding the room in darkness. I can’t see him in the blackness, but I sense his presence and I feel his heat radiating as he draws me to him. His lips move along the curve of my jaw and linger at my ear.

“I love you, Adelice,” he whispers.

Time slows as his words light upon me, but in my chest something bursts into a million fragments that melt back together instantly, remaking me into someone entirely new.

“I love you, too.”

His lips close over mine at the affirmation and we slip into each other. Each of us evolving in the other’s arms—a person stronger because of the other, but more vulnerable as well. His fingers grip the hem of my blouse and he pauses.

“Yes,” I whisper into his chest even as I find myself in danger of exploding from the sensations crowding my body. He fumbles a little as he finds my buttons, and I laugh.

“I didn’t expect you to be nervous.” My words are too high-pitched and I realize how anxious I sound, but Erik laughs as well.

“This is a first for me, too.”

“Erik,” I say softly, and he stops. His face is a sketch against the darkness, the lines of it smooth and fluid, but his eyes are silver as they wait for me to speak. “I’m scared.”

His hands cup my face and he gives me a sad smile. I don’t have to tell him what I’m scared of. The war, what will happen next, Amie’s change, Cormac’s descent into madness. And most of all, who I will be after this moment, because this love is fresh and raw. I can already feel its wounds written across my body, singing with the tenderness of newborn skin.

“Don’t be,” he whispers. His hands don’t leave my face. They are warm and steady as he waits. Finally, I pull them down and clasp them into my own. I take a small, but deliberate step backward. And another. And another. Until my calf bumps into the wooden frame of the bunk. I lie down and Erik climbs in beside me. Our bodies press together as he brings his lips to mine.

Erik isn’t aggressive, even if his touch is urgent, and I understand because I’ve been holding this at bay for a long time, too—since that first night in the courtyard when we danced under the moonlight, and I kissed him because he dared to give me hope. Everything fits with him. The way his lips are soft but full on mine. The way my body locks into his. Our first kiss flashes through my mind. The silver moonlight, the trees etching the dark courtyard, dancing without music. But as we find each other now the world lights up around me, haloing Erik in brilliant life, and the music of time weaves around us, filling the air with a gentle, slow harmony that builds toward a soft cadence.