13. Lily
LILY
It took her hours to fall asleep.
The weirdness of it kept her mind running circles around itself.
Her heart beat faster than normal; her skin itched.
Allsaires danced, had danced. Allsaires had asked to dance, if not with her, in proximity to her.
Allsaires had reached into a roaring fire and been unscathed.
Allsaires had told her freely that he was gay, or queer.
None of it made sense, and all of it filled her with a heated urgency that she didn’t understand.
There had been rumors about him and Conrad Hawleyhurst, that their friendship might be something more, but she’d always taken it for jealousy. As a source of other people’s speculation, she didn’t like to speculate herself.
When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed of fire.