Chapter seventeen #2
"You do not," she says, cold and precise, loud enough to carry, "ask a prince to dance.
Princes extend invitations. You wait to be chosen.
But then, I suppose someone like you wouldn't know that.
" Her smile turns to a blade. "Perhaps if you spent less energy throwing yourself at the princes' attention and more learning your place, you'd stop humiliating yourself in front of the entire academy. "
And that — that lands wrong in me, hot and immediate.
I keep my voice level. "I didn't throw myself at a prince's attention." I hold her eyes. "I asked my friend to dance."
The word drops into the quiet like a stone.
Because I can feel, instantly, that calling a prince my friend is somehow just as outrageous as asking him to dance — maybe more. Luke looks openly amused now. Soren and Ander very much do not. And Natasha's carefully composed face goes tight with fury, and she opens her mouth to escalate—
"Jessica." Jon's voice, smooth and easy, appears at my elbow. "Might I borrow you for a moment?"
He steers me gently to the edge of the room, and the second we're clear of the crowd I groan. "What did I do now?"
"You asked a royal heir to dance," Jon says, with the patience of a man who saw this coming from across the room. "At a traditional Great House event, the heirs extend the invitations. They are not approached."
I stare at him. "Of course they're not."
His mouth twitches. He's trying very hard not to laugh.
"Is there a book?" I demand. "A secret encyclopedia — Things Jessica Is Not Allowed To Do — because I would genuinely like a copy. I'd read it. I'd highlight it."
"This," Jon says, losing the battle with his smile, "is precisely what I was afraid of when I brought the six of you into this world.
These traditions are so deeply ingrained that the people raised in them don't even think to explain them.
They can't imagine not knowing." He shakes his head. "It isn't your failing. It's mine."
"Was Luke offended?" I ask, because that's the part I actually care about.
Jon glances across the room toward the princes. "No." A beat, dry as anything. "I sincerely doubt Luke was the offended party."
I follow his gaze. Luke is still watching me, and Natasha is still radiating fury beside him, and I get it. Ah. Natasha. The traditionalists. Possibly the other two princes. Not Luke.
Fantastic.
Before I can ask about it, I catch him looking at my dress again — the color, specifically — with that same strange stillness.
"You keep doing that," I say. "Looking at my dress like it did something."
Jon's expression closes over, smooth and unreadable. "It's a striking color," he says. "You don't see it anymore." And that's all he says, and he changes the subject before I can push.
I drift back to the edge of the dance floor, and Torres finds me almost immediately.
"You okay?" he asks.
"Apparently I've violated another law nobody told me about," I say. "You can't ask a prince to dance. They summon you. Like a subpoena."
Torres huffs a laugh. "Yeah, I've been in this world a lot longer than you and I still don't know any this aristocratic shit.
It's not for people like us." And that — that's exactly what I needed to hear, because he's an outsider too, still learning the rules himself, and standing next to someone who's just as lost makes the whole hall feel a little less like a minefield.
He looks toward the dance floor. Then he offers me his hand.
"Well," he says, mouth curving. "I know I'm allowed to ask."
"Are you sure?" I say. "You want to risk it? I'm a known rule-breaker now."
"100%," he says honestly. "I would love to dance with you."
"Perfect."
I take his hand, and he pulls me out onto the floor, and it turns out Torres can dance—of course he can.
He has a fighter’s grace, aware of every inch of space.
And it’s easy. He keeps me laughing, keeps me close, and somewhere in the middle of it I stop thinking about invisible rules and just notice him—the warmth of his hand at my back, the way he’s looking at me, the fact that this isn’t two friends dancing anymore and we both know it.
This is real. It’s been building between us for weeks, and for the length of one song, I let myself just feel it.
When the song ends and we drift back toward the others, Luke intercepts us.
His eyes flick to Torres, brief and unreadable, then come back to me.
"Don't be late tomorrow," he says, easy.
I know exactly what he means. "I won't."
"You said that last week."
"That was one time."
"You were twelve minutes late."
I laugh — and I don't notice, at first, that the conversation around us has gone quiet. That people are listening.
"Late for what?" Soren says.
I glance at him. Luke goes very, very still.
And I answer before I understand that this was apparently classified information. "Combat lessons. He's been helping me train — every afternoon, in the arena." I shrug. "I have a hesitation problem. He's fixing it."
The reaction is instant.
Soren's head turns to Luke, slow, disbelieving.
Ander's expression drops into something distinctly unhappy.
And somewhere off to my left I hear Natasha's sharp little intake of breath, which means she heard every word, which means the entire hall is about to hear it too.
The whispers are already starting, that familiar hiss spreading table to table.
I look around at all of it — Soren staring at Luke, Ander glowering, Natasha vibrating with fresh outrage — and I throw up my hands.
"Oh, come on." I gesture between the three princes. "Is that against the rules too?"
And Luke — finally — laughs. Out loud, real, surprised out of him, and it only makes everyone stare harder.
I retreat to where Sophia is waiting, and she has clearly watched the entire disaster unfold and is having the time of her life.
"Don't," I say, dropping into the chair beside her.
"I didn't say anything," Sophia says, the picture of innocence.
"Your face is saying plenty."
She takes a slow, delighted sip of her drink, glances toward the princes, then back at me.
"So. Just to recap. In one evening, you asked a prince to dance, called him your friend to a room full of Great House nobles, danced with Torres, and then casually announced to the entire academy that Prince Luke has been secretly meeting you alone every single afternoon. "
I close my eyes. "When you say it all in a row like that, it sounds bad."
Sophia grins into her glass.
"I think," she says, "it sounds fucking fantastic."
And I start laughing — really laughing, the kind I can't stop — and Sophia joins me, and across the room I can feel half the academy still staring at our table.
I don't turn around to check who.