026— STUTTERED.

"You're not coming," I said.

"I want to come," Elena said.

"I know you want to come. You're not coming."

"It's a party, Sloane. Not a warzone."

"It's a supernatural gathering with wolves from different territories and you have a bandaged finger and you've been out of that room for four days." I looked at her from across the sitting room. "You're not coming."

She pulled her knees to her chest on the sofa and looked at me with those gray eyes that knew exactly what they were doing. "Then you're not going either. I'm not staying here alone."

"You won't be alone. I'll stay with you."

"The coach said it's mandatory—"

"It's really not—"

"Sloane." Her voice dropped. "I can't keep you here because of me. I won't." Her eyes went slightly bright and I recognized it. She was three seconds from crying and she hated crying, had always hated it, would rather argue herself into the ground.

"Elena—"

"I'll be fine," she said, not sounding fine at all.

"I'm not leaving you alone in a mansion you don't know—"

"She won't be alone."

We both turned.

Niko stood in the doorway. Jacket on, hands in pockets, with that easy energy he carried everywhere like it cost him nothing.

"I'll stay," he said. "I'm not really a party person."

He looked at me and winked.

I raised both eyebrows at him.

Elena sat up straighter. "You don't have to—"

"I want to," he said simply. He crossed to the sofa and sat beside her. "In a few days, when your finger is better and you've had more rest—" He looked at her directly. "I'll take you somewhere actually worth going. Not a hockey party. Somewhere better."

Elena looked at him.

A smile started at one corner of her mouth that she didn't bother hiding.

"Promise?" she said.

"Promise," he said.

She settled back against the sofa cushions.

I looked between them for a moment. "It's funny," I said. "You'll listen to him immediately but I've been talking for twenty minutes."

"He's more convincing," Elena said serenely.

I picked up my bag.

     

Heavy footsteps on the stairs.

We all looked up.

Kai came down in a dark jacket, his hair slightly less controlled than usual, like he'd dressed quickly and hadn't checked after. My heart did one hard knock against my ribs and I pressed my hand flat against my stomach and told myself it was nothing.

He looked at his phone. "We leave at six. Prompt." Still not looking up. "I won't wait an extra second."

"I never said I was coming with you," I said.

He looked up then. At me. "Like you have a choice."

"I have plenty of—"

"Niko." He said, already turning away. "Office. Now."

Niko stood, shot me a look on his way out that I couldn't untangle, and followed.

Elena had my wrist before I'd finished formulating my retaliation.

"Upstairs," she said. "We need to find you something to wear."

       

                …

My wardrobe had exactly nothing.

I laid everything I owned on the bed and stood back and looked at it.

"No," Elena said.

"I know."

"Absolutely not."

"I KNOW."

She picked up my least terrible option — dark jeans, black top, and looked at it the way you look at something that has personally offended you.

"You've been living like this for three months," she said.

"I was a diner waitress."

"Still."

I sat on the bed. "I'll just wear the…"

"You will not."

"Elena—"

"Sloane Thorne," she said, with the authority she'd been deploying since we were eight years old. "You are not going to this party in jeans."

"Then I'm not going to the party."

"You're going to the party."

"Not in jeans."

"Correct."

"So we have a problem."

She opened her mouth and I braced myself.

A knock at the door.

It was Anton. Standing in the doorway with bags hanging from both hands, more stacked at his feet. His face was completely neutral.

"From Sir," he said.

He left.

Elena looked at me.

I looked at the bags.

She got there first, pulled out a dress and held it up and I forgot what I was going to say.

Dark brown. Long. The torso beaded in a pattern that caught the light even under the bedroom bulbs. Low neckline. Fitted through the body. And the left shoulder — structured fabric, wrapped, covering exactly the place I'd been hiding under high collars and hockey jerseys for three months. The rejection mark.

I took it from her slowly.

He'd thought about it.

Not just the dress. The shoulder. Where the mark sat. What I'd need covered in a room full of people who would recognize it immediately. He'd thought about that and he'd sent Anton and he hadn't said a word about it.

My throat closed.

Elena appeared beside me. She looked at the shoulder then at my face. For once she said nothing. She just reached out and squeezed my hand once and let go and went back to the bags.

"There's jewelry," she said, voice slightly different. "Shoes. Makeup. Everything."

I stood there holding the dress.

"Stop standing there," she said gently. "Get dressed."

            …

At six o'clock I didn't recognize myself.

Elena had done something to my hair. Half up, the rest falling in waves I hadn't known it could make. The makeup was more than I'd worn in months. The dress fit like it had been measured.

The left shoulder sat exactly where it needed to sit.

I stood in front of the mirror and I looked like someone who had existed before Silvercrest. Before the coronation and the passage and the border town and the diner and all of it.

My eyes went bright.

"Don't you dare," Elena said immediately from behind me. "I just did your makeup."

"I'm not—"

"You absolutely are." She appeared beside me in the mirror. I looked at my reflection with an expression I hadn't seen from her since before everything. "You look extraordinary."

I breathed.

"Go," she said. "Before I start crying too."

           …

The staircase felt longer than usual.

I heard Kai's voice in the entryway before I saw him — low, saying something to Niko. I started down the stairs and my heart was going at a very abnormal rate and I knew it and refused to acknowledge it.

Niko saw me first.

His face did something immediate and he nudged Kai's arm.

Kai was looking at his phone.

He looked up.

And then he just stopped.

Everything he'd been about to say. Whatever thought had been running. Gone. His eyes moved from my face down to the dress and back up and the silver came into his eyes — more than I'd ever seen it, sitting right at the surface, and his face was open in a way I had never once seen it.

Not armored.

Just him.

I reached the last step.

He was there.

His hand came out — palm up, steady, and I took it because there was one step left and my legs had decided to be unreliable. 

His fingers closed around mine and tightened. Not briefly, not politely, like he was not ready to let go, and his eyes didn't leave my face. Not for a second. Not to look at the stairs or anything else.

Just me.

His mouth opened.

"You look—" He stopped. Looked at me again. All of me. Once more. His jaw moved. "You look…"

He swallowed.

"Beau—tiful," he said.

The word came out in two pieces.

Kai Volkov. Who spoke four languages. Who had never once lost the thread of a sentence in my presence.

Stuttered.

I stared at him.

He looked at me.

Neither of us said anything.

Behind him Niko had found something extremely interesting to look at on the ceiling.