The king’s aide I was dancing with — Viktor, maybe — kisses my hand solemnly, does not smile, and thanks me for a lovely dance. I thank him for the same.

Then I walk off the dance floor. Apparently Svelorian women have cyborg feet, because they’ve been standing for hours in heels twice as high as mine, and none of them even seem to notice.

I, on the other hand, think I might die. I snag another glass of champagne, my third of the night, from a server with a tray and drink half of it quickly, hoping it helps the pain a little. At least, maybe it’ll help me notice the pain less.

Then, when I’m nearly clear of the throng of people, someone touches my shoulder.

“Miss Sung,” Kostya says.

I turn around. He’s holding out his hand, and I put mine in it. He kisses my knuckles.

I swear he’s enjoying this whole prince-at-a-ball thing a little too much.

“May I have this dance?” he asks.

It’s all I can do not to laugh.

“I’d be honored,” I say.

I finish the last sip of champagne and walk back to the dance floor, hand in Kostya’s elbow. My whole body feels like it’s filled with bees, and I tell myself over and over again that two people are allowed to dance at a masquerade ball. That’s what people do here.

We get into position. My feet still hurt, but now at least I’m distracted as I look into his gray eyes. He strokes my shoulder blade with his thumb.

The music starts and we dance. He pulls me closer, a little too close, his mouth a few inches from my ear.

“That dress makes me want to bend you over the dessert table and bury my cock in you until you come screaming my name,” he murmurs.

I trip over my own foot.

Kostya steadies me with his hand on my back, even as heat slides through me like a lava flow. I glance around nervously, but no one is showing a sign that they heard him.

“God dammit,” I whisper.

He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are smiling as he looks at me.

“I guess you’re really Prince Kostya behind that mask and not an imposter,” I say a moment later when I’ve regained my composure.

“That’s not proof,” he says, totally straight faced. “I’m sure I’m not the only man here who’s had that thought.”

I scrunch my nose a little, and I see a smile flicker around his mouth.

“If I wanted to prove it, I’d tell you what you looked like in nothing but tube socks,” he says.

“Lucky for you I’m the real Hazel,” I say. “What if I were some official’s wife?”

“Then you would be very scandalized,” he says.

“I am scandalized,” I say. “I nearly fell over.”

“You were just surprised,” he says. “It’s different. If you were scandalized, you wouldn’t be thinking about it right now.”

I swallow, squeeze his hand slightly, and glance at the loaded dessert tables. I imagine myself pressing my face into the white tablecloth, clutching it in one hand as I moan, Kostya fucking me hard and deep from behind.

“And they say chivalry is dead,” I manage to say.

“I’d make sure you come first,” he says. “Chivalrous enough?”

His fingers curl slightly against my back, and I glance around the floor full of dancing couples, desperately wishing that they would all disappear.

“Which dessert table?” I ask.

“The sturdiest one,” he says.

“Not the closest?”

“I’d walk an extra twenty feet to make sure I fucked you right,” he says.

“I do appreciate a job well done,” I say, my pulse racing.

We dance for a moment without speaking, and I just savor being close to him, even in public. I can feel eyes on us from the sidelines, or should I say: eyes on Kostya. There’s Yelena, and there are her friends, the other girls the king’s tried to push on Kostya.

My parents. My mom meets my eyes and gives me one of those mom knows everything looks, and I try to ignore it.

There’s the King, looking unhappy.

He’d look considerably unhappier if he knew what his son had just said to me. I look away and pretend I can’t see him.

The music begins to slow, and Kostya presses his fingers into my back a little harder, like he doesn’t want to let go.

“Thank you for the dance,” he says.

“You’re welcome,” I say. “I only tripped once, and it was your fault.”

“I could make you trip again,” he says, his voice low.

“Not now that I’m expecting it,” I say, forcing myself to keep a straight face, because smiling at the prince has to look suspicious as hell.

“I knew you weren’t scandalized, zloyushka,” he says.

The music stops. We wait a beat too long, then separate. He kisses my hand again and then someone’s there, talking to him, and he gets pulled away for another dance. I melt back into the crowd and finally find a place to sit down.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, the doors to the gallery open and the smell of coffee wafts in. The ballroom begins to empty slightly, so I take a deep breath, heave myself to my feet, and make my way out there.

The gallery is hot, steamy, and I don’t want coffee this late at night, so I go back to the ballroom. Before I know it I’m at the dessert table, and my toes curl as I wonder which one is the sturdiest.

Stop it, I think. You’re in public.

I grab a few morsels and open the door onto the patio by the garden. It’s cool outside but not cold, and I wander a bit until I find a bench hidden away in a nook and collapse onto it, slumping and leaning my head against the stone wall of the castle. I breathe in the rose-scented air from the garden, then lean down, take both my shoes off, and wiggle my toes freely for the first time in hours.

It feels so good I don’t hear the footsteps. I don’t even know anyone else is there until I hear him chuckling.

“Americans,” Kostya says, and I open my eyes.

“Don’t you have official prince business?” I tease. “Or something better to do than come find me in my moment of weakness?”

“I didn’t have to find you,” he says, and sits down next to me. “My eyes have been glued to your ass for hours.”

“It does look pretty good in this dress,” I admit.

Kostya just grins.

“And you said you were a pigeon,” he says, and I laugh.

“It’s true,” I say. “Everyone seems so uptight, but then I get to a formal event and the women all have their tits out.”

I sigh.

“I don’t get it,” I say.

He leans back against the wall, tilting his head against mine.

“Still not stranger than pie-eating contests,” he says, taking my hand in his and lacing our fingers together. I laugh and squeeze his fingers.

“Pie is delicious,” I say. “It’s not that strange.”

“But if you’re eating as part of a contest, you’re not enjoying the pie,” he says. “It may as well be sawdust.”

“I can’t really defend pie-eating contests,” I admit. “I’m barely American.”

“Why?” he asks. “You seem very American.”

“Because I’m loud, friendly, and don’t know my manners?” I ask.

“You wore spandex pants to meet the royal family,” he says.

I sigh.

“I barely lived there until I was a teenager because of my mom,” I say. “We lived in Croatia for a while, then Poland. Ireland. Brazil. Then they sent me to boarding school.”

“Your parents did?” he asks, sounding puzzled.

I nod.

“They wanted me to have at least a couple years of stability,” I say. “Where I could make friends and keep them for a while. Stay in one place for a couple years, at least.”

I swallow and look ahead, remembering that first day. Getting off the plane in Boston, my parents helping me set up a room, and then driving away. Me feeling like an alien with all the other American teenagers.

“I think it was pretty hard for them,” I say.

“What about you?” he asks.

“It was hard at first,” I say. “But I got used to it. Then I got kicked out when I got caught smoking pot on school grounds.”

“I knew it,” he says. “Bad from the beginning.”

“It turned out you needed richer parents than I had to get away with that kind of thing,” I say. “So I went to another one and didn’t get caught.”

He chuckles.

“Of course,” he says.

“You went to boarding school too, right?” I ask.

“Only one, in Switzerland,” he says. “I didn’t get kicked out.”

“You were probably quarterback of the football team, valedictorian, and class president,” I tease.

“Rugby,” he says. “I don’t think I broke a rule until I was twenty-three.”

“And now you’ve broken at least a couple,” I say. “Better stop now or you’ll develop a taste for it.”

He brings my hand to his mouth and kisses it.

“Too late,” he says. “You’re a very bad influence, zloyushka.”

“Good,” I say. “You needed one.”

He kisses me briefly, both of us still leaning against the wall.

“I’m coming over tonight,” he says, lowering his voice.

I can’t help but smile.

“You don’t have to escort Yelena home or something?” I ask.

A tiny twinge of jealousy worms its way through my chest, but I ignore it.

“I might,” he says. “But I’m coming all the same.”

We kiss again, longer this time, his lips moving against mine before we pull back.

“Keep your dress on,” he says, his voice dropping. “I want to take it off you with my teeth.”

My whole body flushes with heat.

“Then don’t take too long,” I say. “I’ve waited enough already.”

We kiss, longer and slower. He puts his hand to my face and runs his thumb slowly along my cheekbone, just underneath my mask.

“I should go before someone comes looking for me,” he says when he pulls back.

“We could go to my room now and you could make excuses later,” I say. “It’s better to apologize than ask permission, you know.”

Kostya just chuckles, his voice low and gravelly, and kisses me again.

“Keep the dress on,” he whispers, and stands, straightening his uniform. I stay on the bench, kicking my feet.

As he turns to leave, his back suddenly straightens and his face goes stony. A bad feeling gathers in the pit of my stomach, and I sit up straight and slide my feet into my shoes.

Please not his father, I think.

“Yelena,” Kostya says.

That’s better, but not by much.

She answers him in Russian, her sweet voice soft and confused. Then she walks forward, sees me, and freezes.

“Good evening, Miss Sung,” she says, still very formal with me.

She reaches out and takes Kostya’s arm, her eyes flicking from me to him and back, like she’s trying to add something together and can’t quite manage it.

“Good evening, Yelena Pavlovna,” I say, and stand in my unfastened shoes. I hope I don’t need to take a step, because I’ll fall over.

She looks up at him.

“Your father asked me to find you. He’s giving a toast before the final dance.”

Kostya nods once.

“Of course,” he says. “It was a pleasure talking to you, Hazel.”

“You as well, Kostya,” I say.

Yelena gives me one last glance, and they walk away. I sit heavily on the bench and stare at the stonework path for a moment, trying not to think what if she’d come thirty seconds earlier.

I refasten my shoes, take a deep breath, and delicately scratch my face underneath my mask.

We’re not keeping this secret, I think. Just because I haven’t actually told anyone doesn’t mean they haven’t found out.

Hell, Yelena, his actual date to this event, came about ten seconds too late to catch us making out. This secret thing isn’t working.

I walk back toward the ball, just as Kostya escorts Yelena back into the ballroom through the open glass doors. I don’t want to be jealous, but right in that instant, I am.

I’m stupidly, childishly, petulantly jealous that she gets to have him escort her around, that she can come find him if she wants. That she gets him in public and I get him in garages and bunkers, after midnight, in the dark.

Put on your big girl panties, Hazel, I think.

Then I walk into the ballroom and listen to toasts.

* * *

I walk with my parents back to the guest wing of the palace. The moment we’re out of sight of Svelorians, I make my parents wait for me to take off my shoes, then stretch my toes against the wooden floor.

“I don’t know how those women do it,” I say. “They’re robots, Mom. Robots with robot feet.”

She laughs.

“They’re just used to wearing heels,” she says.

“I gotta say, being a man is pretty great,” my dad teases. “No heels, no childbirth...”

“Shut up,” my mom and I say in unison.

Then we laugh again. We’re both slightly tipsy. I think she’s still relieved that the assassination attempt turned out to be nothing, and I’ve got my own reasons for being in a great mood.

We reach the junction of the hallway where they go left and I go right, and my mom gives me a hug.

“We’ll see you Tuesday,” she says.

“Tuesday?” I say.

“The King set up some meetings while he’s at the economic summit over the weekend and asked me to join him,” she says.

“I just wanted to go to Kiev,” my father adds.

It sounds vaguely familiar, so I just nod.

She hugs me again, a little tighter this time.

“Hazel, be safe,” she says. “And behave yourself.”

She emphasizes the last part just a little too much.

“Don’t I always?” I ask.

My mom just sighs, then relinquishes me to my dad.

“Stay out of trouble, freckles,” he says. “At least try.”

We head to our respective rooms. I shut the door and lock it behind me, then toss my shoes under the bed, and get the mask off my face and toss it on the dresser.

I hesitate for a moment, then reach into my dress, unstick the jellyfish bra, and throw it into a drawer. It’s not exactly a sexy look.

Then I wonder what I’m supposed to do while I wait.

After a while I settle for reading in a big leather armchair, but I can’t focus. I’m reading the same paragraph of Alice in Wonderland, the only English book I could find in the Kiev train station before I left, over and over again, listening for a knock on the door.

I read it again. Think about the dessert table. Squirm. Read the paragraph.

I want to take it off you with my teeth.

Read the paragraph again.

There’s a noise on the balcony, and I freeze. Even though I’m on the second floor of a literal fortress, I reach up and turn off the light, then turn off all the lights as I move through my rooms, still in my formal gown.

Quietly, I walk to the French doors and stand behind the curtains. Part of me thinks I’m being crazy, and part of me is remembering that someone wanted the king dead. Maybe they’re trying again and they have the wrong room.

In the corner of the balcony, a hand grips the railing of the balcony, then another. I realize there’s a third option and I’m an idiot.

I swing the French doors open and lean in the doorway just as Kostya pulls himself up and over the stonework railing, then stands on the balcony.

His formal jacket is open to his white undershirt and he’s breathing hard from the climb, his chest expanding against the thin fabric. Slowly, he reaches up and takes a rose from between his teeth.

If this were in a movie, I’d roll my eyes, but as it is I’m breathless with desire, totally captivated as we stare at each other.

“I told you I was coming,” he says, just a hint of a smile on his face.

“I believed you,” I say.

Kostya walks toward me across the balcony and holds out the rose. It’s ragged at one end where he ripped it from the bush, and I take it from his fingers, my heart beating so hard I can feel it in the soles of my feet.

“You should have told me you were going to climb the balcony,” I say, holding the rose up to smell it.

“Why’s that?” he asks, but he’s smiling.

“I’d have let my hair down so you could climb it,” I say.

Kostya puts one fingertip in the hollow of my throat and then slides it down my sternum, still smiling, his eyes lit up like he’s laughing at some joke.

I shiver as his finger moves between my breasts, my nipples hardening instantly.

“Zloyushka, you’re impossible,” he says, his voice low and gravelly.

I want to lean back against the doorframe and beg him to put his hands on me. I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for this, and now he’s torturing me with one fingertip.

“Why?” I whisper.

“I climbed up a stone wall in my dress uniform, and now you’re making fun of me,” he teases, moving forward. He’s still warm from the climb and I can feel his body heat radiating off of him, making every inch of me feel warm and feverish.

“Don’t you think climbing a tower with a rose in your teeth is a little too fairy tale?” I tease back.

He just chuckles, then wraps his hand around my back and pulls me to him.

“If you think I’m here to rescue you, you’ve got the wrong idea,” he whispers into my ear.