Amor’s brows lifted slowly, his surprise hardening into such profound disbelief that, for a moment, he could only stare at Alphonsins as though the duke had just claimed ownership of the moon. The pain in his wrist remained sharp beneath the man’s fingers, yet it was the sheer absurdity of Alphonsins’s declaration—not the bruising grip—that briefly robbed him of speech. Of every response Amor had anticipated, including threats, insults, and a demand for compensation, he had not expected the male lead to behave as though a relationship born from blackmail required mutual consent to end.
"You cannot possibly believe that..."
Amor said at last, his voice quiet enough to remain controlled despite the irritation gathering behind every word.
"You spent six months reminding me that you never wanted this relationship, that you considered my presence intolerable, and that you would have preferred to throw me from your estate rather than permit me across its threshold. Now that I am finally granting you everything you claimed to desire, you have decided that I require your permission to leave?"
Alphonsins’s expression remained taut and unreadable, though his grip loosened by another fraction as Amor’s words settled between them. The duke did not appear embarrassed by the contradiction, nor did he offer anything resembling an explanation; instead, his steel-blue eyes searched Amor’s face with a grim intensity, as though the answer to some increasingly urgent question had been hidden beneath his pale skin. That silent scrutiny only aggravated Amor further, because he had already explained himself more generously than the situation deserved.
"I did not say you required my permission."
Alphonsins replied after a measured pause.
"You said I do not get to decide that our relationship is over..."
Amor countered, the painted fan trembling once in his restrained hand before he stilled it with deliberate effort.
"That is precisely what permission means, Your Grace, regardless of how elegantly you attempt to phrase it."
Alphonsins’s jaw tightened, and for a fleeting instant, the cold composure expected of the empire’s most feared duke slipped enough to reveal genuine frustration beneath it.
"You forced your way into my life, altered my household, interfered with my political affairs, and made your presence impossible to ignore. You cannot undo all of that with a single sentence spoken in the middle of a ballroom."
Amor stared at him in open astonishment before a small, humorless laugh escaped his lips.
"Would you prefer paperwork?"
The duke’s eyes narrowed dangerously, yet Amor refused to retreat, even when Alphonsins stepped closer and cast his broad shadow over the delicate pastels of Amor’s clothing. The warm illumination spilling from the curtained ballroom doors gilded the edges of his silver hair, transforming him into something severe and almost otherworldly, though the effect was diminished considerably by the fact that he was behaving like a child refusing to relinquish a toy he had never enjoyed. Whatever complicated thoughts churned beneath that handsome exterior, Amor had neither the patience nor the suicidal curiosity required to uncover them.
"I will send a formal notice to your estate in the morning..."
Amor said with exaggerated reasonableness.
"It can include a list of your belongings still residing in my manor, though I believe those consist of one military cloak, three books you never intended to lend me, and a bottle of wine you repeatedly forbade me from opening. Perhaps there is more? Once those items are returned, there will be nothing left between us requiring further discussion."
"There is more between us than misplaced property."
The words emerged so quickly that Alphonsins appeared almost as startled by them as Amor was.
Silence settled over the balcony again, disturbed only by the softened orchestra beyond the heavy curtains and the whisper of night wind through the palace gardens below. Alphonsins’s expression became rigid, as though he wished to seize the sentence from the air and force it back behind his teeth, while Amor examined him with renewed wariness. The original novel had never mentioned the duke caring about Amor beyond his usefulness as an obstacle, and Amor could not decide whether this strange resistance represented wounded pride, possessiveness, or the early symptoms of some catastrophic deviation from the plot.
"Is there?"
Amor asked, allowing a deliberate note of condescension to enter his voice.
"You have never taken me to dinner unless court etiquette demanded it, never offered me so much as a flower, and once instructed your guards to pretend you were absent while you were visibly standing behind them. Unless your definition of intimacy is remarkably unconventional, I fail to see what meaningful bond I am supposedly abandoning."
Alphonsins’s thumb shifted against Amor’s pulse, pressing unconsciously into the tender skin where a bruise was already beginning to form. His gaze dropped toward their joined hands, and a strange flicker crossed his features—something uncomfortably close to guilt, though it vanished beneath his usual severity before Amor could be certain. He loosened his grip further, yet he still did not let go.
"You are different after the fever."
Alphonsins said. The unexpected observation sent a chill beneath Amor’s skin.
His expression remained composed through force of will alone, though the hand holding the fan tightened until its carved frame threatened to bite into his palm. Alphonsins could not possibly know the truth, but Amor had underestimated him if he believed the empire’s most accomplished military strategist would fail to notice such an abrupt transformation. The original Amor had pursued the duke with suffocating devotion, whereas Amor had awakened and immediately begun arranging his escape; even a far less perceptive man would eventually question the change.
"Nearly dying has a remarkable ability to improve one’s judgment..."
Amor replied smoothly.
"I recommend the experience, although in your case, I suspect the benefits would be limited."
Alphonsins’s mouth flattened.
Before he could respond, a faint sound rose from the gardens below the balcony—a woman’s startled gasp, followed by the soft clatter of something metallic striking the stone path. The noise was quiet enough that it might have escaped anyone less alert, but Alphonsins reacted immediately, his head turning toward the balustrade while his entire posture sharpened with instinctive vigilance. Amor followed his gaze despite himself, though the balcony’s stone railing and the dark sweep of hedges concealed whoever stood below.
A feminine voice drifted upward a moment later, soft with embarrassment and unmistakably familiar to anyone who had read the opening Chapters of The Duke’s Captive Love.
"Oh, how careless of me."
Amor’s heart jolted.
’Celestine!’
Even without seeing her face, he recognized the line, because the heroine had spoken those exact words after dropping an ornamental hairpin near the palace fountain. In the novel, Alphonsins was supposed to be walking through the garden when he heard it strike the stone, and when he bent to retrieve it, he would discover Celestine standing beneath the magnolia branches with moonlight silvering her hair. It was the beginning of their love story, the sacred first encounter upon which every subsequent tragedy had been built.
Amor’s eyes widened slightly as another fragment of the original Chapter returned to him.
The hairpin was shaped like a white magnolia flower, a treasured gift from Celestine’s late mother, and Alphonsins would recognize the royal artisan’s mark engraved beneath its petals. He would return it to her with surprising gentleness, ask why she was alone in the garden, and then stand beside her as she confessed how suffocating she found the court’s endless rumors. By dawn, the duke who had never believed in love would be unable to forget the sorrow hidden within her eyes.
This was it.
This was the scene Amor had been waiting for, and he was currently occupying the balcony directly above it while Alphonsins continued holding his wrist like an offended husband.
The realization sent a fresh wave of alarm through him, not because he cared whether the novel’s romance retained every sentimental detail, but because he had no intention of being blamed if it failed to begin. The original Amor’s destruction had occurred largely because he interfered with Alphonsins and Celestine at every opportunity, twisting their encounters into scandals and attacking the heroine whenever the duke showed her the slightest kindness. Standing between them now—even accidentally—felt like stepping onto the first stone of the same bloodstained path.
Below, Celestine murmured something Amor could not hear, followed by the rustle of fabric as she presumably bent to search the moonlit path. Alphonsins moved toward the railing by instinct, his attention fully captured by the unfamiliar voice and the possibility that someone might be in distress. His fingers relaxed around Amor’s wrist at last, though the duke did not seem to notice that he had done so.
Amor noticed.
He twisted his hand swiftly, sliding his delicate wrist through the loosened circle of Alphonsins’s fingers before the man could tighten his grasp again. The movement sent pain lancing across the reddened skin, but Amor swallowed the discomfort and stepped backward at once, placing several precious feet of distance between them. Alphonsins turned sharply at the loss of contact, his attention snapping back to Amor with a look that suggested he had only just remembered their argument was unfinished.
"Amor—"
"Someone appears to require your assistance..."
Amor interrupted, gesturing toward the garden with his folded fan.
"As the empire’s celebrated military hero, it would be terribly damaging to your reputation if a helpless noblewoman perished beneath this balcony while you were occupied disputing the mechanics of a breakup."
"She dropped something..."
Alphonsins replied coldly.
"She is not dying."
"Then you should have no difficulty rescuing it."
Amor did not wait for the duke to answer. He turned toward the curtained doors, slipped one hand between the heavy velvet panels, and pulled them apart just enough to pass through. The warm brilliance of the ballroom enveloped him immediately, along with the refined swell of music and the layered murmur of hundreds of conversations, and he eased the balcony door closed behind him before Alphonsins could follow. His fingers hesitated near the curtain for only a heartbeat, tempted by the dangerous urge to glance back and confirm whether the duke had gone to meet Celestine.
He resisted.
The less Amor witnessed, the less opportunity he had to interfere, and he refused to linger near the male and female leads as their destined romance finally stirred to life. Alphonsins would hear Celestine below, descend into the garden, find the magnolia hairpin, and become captivated exactly as the novel demanded. Amor’s role in the scene had ended the moment he freed himself from the duke’s grasp.
At least, it should have.
Amor inhaled slowly and straightened his shoulders, restoring every inch of the effortless elegance that Alphonsins’s manhandling had disturbed. He smoothed the fitted bodice over his narrow waist, adjusted the flowing fabric draped from his hips, and carefully pulled one bell sleeve lower to conceal the angry marks encircling his wrist. By the time he stepped away from the curtains, his expression had returned to its original state of cool, immaculate indifference.
Several nobles near the balcony pretended not to watch him emerge alone.
A baroness abruptly became fascinated by the bubbles in her champagne, while two young lords turned toward an uninspiring portrait with such unnatural speed that one nearly struck the other with his shoulder. Among them stood three of Amor’s former lovers, all wearing expressions of poorly disguised curiosity as they searched his face for signs of humiliation or heartbreak. Amor rewarded them with a languid sweep of his soft pink eyes, lifting his painted fan just enough to hide the faintest curve of his lips.
Their hopeful expressions faltered.
No one dared ask what had occurred behind the curtains, though Amor knew that would not prevent them from inventing increasingly scandalous versions before midnight. By morning, half the capital would believe Alphonsins had begged upon his knees, while the other half would claim Amor had thrown a vase at his head and attempted to climb down the balcony trellis. Aristocratic society did not require truth when fiction offered so much more entertainment.
Amor began his walk toward the ballroom’s grand entrance, moving at an unhurried pace despite the impatience urging him onward. Leaving too quickly would resemble retreat, and Amor Moons—whether the original villain or the newly arrived occupant of his beautiful body—did not flee from anyone in public. He crossed the polished floor with his chin held high, lavender hair flowing down his back and long sleeves drifting around him, presenting the image of a man departing because the celebration had failed to remain worthy of his attention.
The dancers continued their elegant rotations beneath the chandeliers, unaware that the novel’s villain had just severed what should have been the most destructive relationship of his life. Noblemen still negotiated shipping contracts near the colonnade, their voices lowered beneath the orchestra, while women concealed fresh gossip behind embroidered fans and watched Amor’s progress through narrowed eyes. Everything appeared unchanged, yet Amor felt as though the ballroom had shifted around him, becoming less a stage upon which his fate had already been written and more a place he might cross without following the prescribed path.
His business was finished.
He had broken up with Alphonsins publicly, explained the decision privately, and removed himself from the garden meeting before Celestine’s arrival could draw him into the narrative’s central romance. Whatever protest the duke intended to make could be delivered to the empty air of House Moons’s receiving hall, where a servant would be instructed to accept no visitors bearing the Solaris crest. Amor had no desire to spend another moment arguing with a man who seemed offended by receiving the freedom he had spent months demanding.
As he passed a servant carrying crystal glasses of rose-colored wine, Amor paused long enough to take one from the tray. He brought it to his lips, savoring the sweet floral taste while considering the far more important matter awaiting him now that his immediate death flag had been removed. This body belonged to the sole heir of House Moons, a family whose wealth was mentioned repeatedly in the novel whenever the original Amor financed another extravagant scheme.
The Moons estate possessed three city mansions, two country villas, an ancestral castle overlooking the western sea, and enough farmland to support several generations of profoundly irresponsible descendants. There were jewel collections stored in private vaults, foreign investments managed by discreet merchants, and an annual allowance so excessive that the original Amor had once purchased an entire theater merely because an actor refused his bouquet and insulted his shoes. Such money had been wasted on pursuing Alphonsins, bribing servants, and tormenting Celestine, but Amor could imagine far more civilized uses for it.
’I could travel.’
The thought arrived with such delightful simplicity that Amor nearly stopped walking.
He could visit the southern coast and spend winter in a villa overlooking warm blue water, or journey to the Kingdom of Vale to purchase the silks currently inspiring half the women in the ballroom. He could commission an entire wardrobe designed around his new body, renovate the Moons ancestral castle, collect rare wines, sponsor artists, and fill his days with every luxury that had once existed beyond his reach. Most importantly, he could do all of it without allowing the novel’s romantic catastrophe to swallow him whole.
A quiet laugh threatened to escape, though Amor concealed it behind the rim of his glass.
Transmigration had stolen his old life without warning, but it had also placed him inside a beautiful, healthy, obscenely wealthy body whose greatest problem could be solved by simply refusing to behave like an obsessed fool. Once Alphonsins and Celestine began their destined romance, the narrative would have no reason to concern itself with him. Amor could become precisely what he had hoped to be from the moment he understood his situation:
A wealthy spectator enjoying the luxuries of the world while its protagonists suffered through misunderstandings, political conspiracies, and dramatic declarations beneath inconvenient weather.
The towering front doors drew closer, guarded by palace attendants dressed in white and gold.
Amor returned his half-finished wine to another passing tray and lifted his fan, concealing his lips as he prepared to offer whatever excuse court etiquette required for an early departure. He would claim lingering weakness from the fever, which had the useful advantage of being both believable and impossible for polite society to challenge. By the time anyone informed Alphonsins that Amor had left, the Moons carriage would already be carrying him through the palace gates.
He had nearly reached the entrance when an unsettling thought slowed his steps.
Alphonsins’s strained expression returned to him with irritating clarity—the rigid line of his mouth, the turmoil buried beneath his steel-blue eyes, and the peculiar insistence that Amor could not decide their relationship was over. None of it aligned with the duke described in the novel, who should have accepted Amor’s departure with relief and forgotten him the moment Celestine appeared beneath the magnolia trees. The scene on the balcony had felt less like a clean severing of the plot and more like the tightening of a thread Amor had believed he was cutting.
He dismissed the concern almost immediately.
The male lead’s pride had been wounded, nothing more, and Celestine would soothe whatever irritation remained once Alphonsins met her in the garden. By the next Chapter of their lives, the duke would be thinking of moonlit hairpins and sorrowful eyes rather than the former lover who had humiliated him before several delighted witnesses. Amor refused to grant an unreadable expression more importance than it deserved.
With that reassuring conclusion, he resumed his graceful walk toward the doors. Behind him, hidden beyond the heavy curtains, the balcony should have become empty.
Alphonsins had not gone down to the garden immediately.
Behind the heavy velvet curtains, Alphonsins remained motionless long after the balcony doors had clicked shut behind Amor. The echo of that quiet sound seemed absurdly loud against the distant music, lingering within the cold night air as his gaze remained fixed upon the place where a slender hand had parted the curtains only moments before. He should have felt relieved now that Amor was gone, yet the emotion spreading through his chest felt nothing like freedom.
For six relentless months, Amor Moons had inserted himself into every carefully ordered corner of Alphonsins’s existence, arriving at his estate without invitation, interfering with his schedule, and turning even the most mundane public appearance into a spectacle. Alphonsins had repeatedly demanded distance, had ignored bouquets and gifts until they wilted in his halls, and had spoken with enough deliberate cruelty that any other person would have abandoned the pursuit within a week. Amor had remained regardless, smiling as though every rejection were merely another stage in a courtship whose conclusion had already been decided.
Alphonsins had despised that certainty.
He had despised the way Amor behaved as though the duke’s resistance were irrelevant, as though persistence alone granted him the right to rearrange Alphonsins’s life around his whims. He had despised the lies, the manipulation, and the blackmail that had left him trapped inside a relationship he had never agreed to begin. Most of all, he had despised the knowledge that Amor believed himself entitled to Alphonsins’s attention simply because he had decided he wanted it.
Yet now, when Amor had finally withdrawn that unwanted attention, Alphonsins could not force himself to experience the satisfaction he had imagined so many times.
His eyes lowered toward his empty hand.
The lingering impression of Amor’s delicate wrist remained against his palm, impossibly slender and warm despite the glove separating their skin, while the sight of the red marks left by his fingers returned with uncomfortable clarity. Alphonsins had not intended to grip him so tightly, nor could he explain why the sight of Amor turning toward the doors had filled him with an immediate, violent need to prevent him from leaving. He had acted before thought intervened, catching the wrist he should have willingly released and holding it as though Amor’s departure posed some threat he could not identify.
Below the balcony, the soft rustle of fabric moved along the garden path.
Alphonsins’s attention shifted toward the stone balustrade, though not with the alert curiosity that had first drawn his gaze there. He remembered the woman’s startled exclamation and the metallic clatter that had interrupted his confrontation with Amor, yet both had already faded beneath the far more urgent awareness that Amor was walking away from him. The person below might have been injured, lost, or endangered, and still Alphonsins found himself listening instead for the faint sound of the ballroom doors opening on the other side of the curtains.
’Amor intends to leave the palace.’
The realization came without evidence beyond the man’s final expression, but Alphonsins knew it with the same certainty he brought to a battlefield. Amor had not returned to the celebration after their argument; he had escaped it, and his composed retreat through the ballroom would carry him directly toward the front entrance. Within minutes, the Moons carriage would pass through the palace gates, taking Amor beyond Alphonsins’s immediate reach.
His hand moved toward the curtain before he consciously decided to follow. Alphonsins stopped with his fingers suspended inches from the velvet.
The simple instinct to go after Amor provoked a surge of anger far sharper than the humiliation of being rejected before the court. He had wanted this separation, had demanded it through every cold look and dismissive word exchanged between them, and now Amor had finally granted it without bargaining for affection in return. Pursuing him now would transform the duke into the very sort of fool Amor expected men to become once he discarded them. Alphonsins lowered his hand.
"He wants to be followed..."
He muttered, though the empty balcony offered no agreement.
"This is another game."
The explanation was reasonable enough to be comforting.
Amor was bored, as he had so carelessly claimed, and perhaps that boredom had inspired him to invent a new method of tormenting the man he had spent half a year pursuing. He would withdraw suddenly, provoke uncertainty, and wait for Alphonsins to come searching for him, thereby proving that his manipulation had finally created some attachment. Once Alphonsins appeared at House Moons demanding answers, Amor would smile behind that painted fan and reveal that the breakup had been nothing more than an elaborate test.
’Yes...’
Alphonsins decided.
’That is precisely the sort of scheme Amor would devise.’
The conclusion should have restored his composure, yet it did nothing to quiet the unease beneath his ribs. Amor’s eyes had contained none of the feverish devotion Alphonsins had grown accustomed to enduring, nor had there been any hidden plea beneath his condescending smile. He had looked at Alphonsins as though the duke were merely an inconvenient task he wished to finish before moving on to more pleasant matters.
That indifference had been more insulting than hatred could ever have been.
Another sound rose from the garden below, this time followed by a quiet sigh of frustration. Alphonsins moved toward the balustrade and looked down, forcing his attention away from the curtained doors and the man disappearing somewhere beyond them. Moonlight washed over the garden paths, turning the pale stones silver and tracing delicate shadows beneath the hedges, while a lone woman searched beside the marble fountain several floors below.
Her pale gown pooled around her feet as she bent near a bed of winter flowers, and her long golden-brown hair spilled over one shoulder in soft waves that caught the moonlight. She appeared to be searching for something small, moving her gloved hands carefully along the edge of the path while occasionally glancing toward the ballroom as though afraid someone might discover her absence. Even from above, Alphonsins recognized Lady Celestine Meadows, the young noblewoman whose rumored involvement with the crown prince had supplied the court with its favorite scandal of the season.
Alphonsins had seen her before, though only from a distance.
They had exchanged the obligatory greetings required at formal functions, and he knew her father controlled several prosperous ports along the eastern coastline, but she had never occupied his thoughts beyond those practical facts. Her beauty was undeniable, refined and luminous beneath the moonlight, yet the sight of her did not provoke the immediate fascination that caused lesser men to embarrass themselves whenever she entered a room. In that moment, she was simply a noblewoman who appeared to have lost something in the garden.
Alphonsins looked back toward the curtains.
’I could still follow Amor.’
The thought rose with such swiftness that his jaw tightened, and for one humiliating instant, he imagined crossing the ballroom, reaching the palace entrance, and ordering Amor to remain before the carriage could depart. He did not know what he would say once he caught him, only that their conversation was unfinished and that the words—
"I grew bored."
—could not be permitted to stand as Amor’s final judgment of their relationship. He wanted to force another explanation from him, something more convincing than boredom and more satisfying than the implication that Alphonsins had merely been a temporary amusement who happened to last longer than expected.
That desire alone made the decision for him. Alphonsins turned away from the doors.
He would not follow Amor Moons through a crowded palace like one of the discarded noblemen who had watched their confrontation with such pathetic delight. He would not reward another manipulation by proving that Amor could command his attention merely by withdrawing his own. Whatever strange impulse urged him to pursue the man would be mastered as easily as every other weakness Alphonsins had eradicated from himself.
Below, Celestine straightened with a worried crease between her brows, one hand rising to touch the empty place in her hair where an ornament had clearly been fastened. Alphonsins noticed a faint glimmer near the base of the fountain, almost hidden beneath the overlapping shadows of the flowers. A small silver hairpin rested against the pale stone, its white enamel petals shaped into a magnolia blossom.
He glanced toward the curtains one final time. The velvet remained undisturbed.
"Very well."
Alphonsins said quietly, as though answering a challenge no one else could hear.
He left the balcony by a narrow side entrance used by servants and palace guards, deliberately choosing a route that would take him away from the grand ballroom and the palace’s front doors. Each step along the dim corridor placed more distance between him and Amor, yet Alphonsins maintained a measured pace, refusing to acknowledge the tension that gathered across his shoulders whenever he imagined the Moons carriage beginning its journey. He told himself that this was discipline rather than avoidance, and that turning toward the garden proved Amor possessed no power over him.
The palace corridors descended toward the eastern gallery, where tall windows overlooked the moonlit grounds and the orchestra’s music faded into a distant murmur. Alphonsins passed two startled guards without explanation, his severe expression discouraging either man from questioning why the duke had abandoned the ball. By the time he reached the lower doors leading into the garden, the cold night air had sharpened enough to steady his thoughts.
’Amor would return.’
The certainty formed almost automatically, reinforced by six months of relentless experience. Amor had threatened to leave before, usually when denied some extravagant request, only to appear at the Solaris estate the following morning dressed in brighter colors and behaving as though the disagreement had never occurred. Even if tonight’s performance continued for several days, boredom would eventually send him searching for Alphonsins again.
The duke ignored the quieter thought that followed.
’The Amor who had awakened from the fever did not seem like a man who intended to return.’
Alphonsins stepped onto the garden path.
Celestine remained beside the fountain, her attention fixed upon the ground, and she did not notice him approaching until the heel of his polished boot touched the edge of her fallen hairpin. He bent and retrieved it before she could, lifting the silver magnolia between gloved fingers as moonlight traced the delicate enamel petals. On its underside, nearly concealed beside the clasp, was the mark of a royal artisan.
"Oh!"
Celestine breathed as she straightened, surprise widening her warm amber eyes.
"Your Grace."
She dipped into a hurried curtsy, though embarrassment made the movement slightly less graceful than court etiquette demanded. Alphonsins regarded her in silence for a moment, aware that most men would have found the faint color rising across her cheeks charming. His thoughts, however, remained fixed upon a far paler face framed by lavender hair and the wicked curve of plump pink lips forming the words that had followed him from the balcony.
"You should be flattered, Alphonsins. You lasted three months longer than any man I dated before you."
His fingers tightened around the hairpin.
Celestine glanced uncertainly toward his hand, and Alphonsins forced his grip to relax before the delicate ornament bent beneath the pressure.
"I believe this belongs to you."
"Yes, Your Grace..."
Relief softened her features as she accepted it from him with both hands.
"It was my mother’s, and I feared I had lost it somewhere inside the ballroom."
Their fingers did not touch.
According to every principle of courtesy, Alphonsins should have returned to the celebration once the item was restored, yet he remained where he stood. Going back through the ballroom would place him near the entrance, where he might discover whether Amor had already departed, and Alphonsins refused to allow himself even that indirect concession. He would remain in the garden because he had chosen to come here, not because doing so kept him from following the man who had rejected him.
"You should not wander the palace grounds alone at night..."
He said, the warning colder than he intended.
"Even within the royal estate, secluded paths invite unnecessary danger."
Celestine’s expression dimmed, and she lowered her gaze toward the magnolia hairpin cupped within her hands.
"I only wished to escape the whispers for a moment."
Alphonsins knew which whispers she meant.
The court had spent the evening dissecting her rumored relationship with the crown prince, embellishing every meeting until ordinary conversations became clandestine affairs and innocent visits transformed into evidence of seduction. Celestine had endured the speculation with admirable composure inside the ballroom, but the loneliness in her voice suggested the strain had finally driven her outside. It was precisely the sort of vulnerability that might inspire sympathy, perhaps even fascination, in a man inclined toward romantic sentiment.
Alphonsins found himself wondering whether Amor had reached his carriage. He silenced the thought with ruthless immediacy.
"The court speaks because it has nothing of consequence to say..."
Alphonsins replied.
"You grant those rumors power by allowing them to drive you from rooms where you have every right to remain."
Celestine looked up at him, her amber eyes widening slightly, and beneath the flowering branches above them, several pale petals loosened in the night breeze. One drifted downward and settled among her golden-brown curls, resting near her temple with such artful delicacy that the moment seemed almost arranged by an unseen hand. Alphonsins noticed it immediately.
For reasons he could not explain, another image rose instead.
Lavender hair spilling down a narrow back, silver chains glimmering between the strands, and long bell sleeves fluttering as Amor slipped through the curtains without looking behind him.
Alphonsins lifted his hand toward Celestine’s hair. He hesitated before touching the petal.
The pause was brief enough that she did not appear to notice, though he felt it with humiliating clarity. He could still turn away, leave the garden, and catch Amor before the carriage passed beyond the palace grounds. The impulse struck him one final time, urgent and irrational, and every instinct sharpened by years of command demanded that he resolve the threat of Amor’s departure before it moved beyond his control.
Instead, Alphonsins plucked the magnolia petal from Celestine’s hair.
"You had something caught there."
He said. Celestine touched the place his fingers had nearly brushed, and the faint color in her cheeks deepened.
"Thank you, Your Grace."
Alphonsins let the petal fall. He remained beside her as the fountain murmured softly beneath the moonlight, choosing conversation where he felt no desire for it and offering protection that had not been requested. Somewhere beyond the palace walls, carriage wheels began rolling over the stone drive, their distant rhythm nearly swallowed by the orchestra and the whispering gardens. Alphonsins did not turn toward the ball.
He had made his choice.
He would speak with Celestine, escort her safely back to the ballroom, and prove—if only to himself—that Amor Moons’s departure meant nothing. He would follow the course expected of him rather than surrender to the inexplicable urge to chase a man he had never wanted.
’By morning...’
He told himself.
’This irritation I am feeling will pass, and the absence that already seemed to stretch strangely through the palace will become the freedom I have always demanded.’
At the front of the Royal Palace, Amor’s carriage crossed through the gilded gates.
Alphonsins stood beneath the magnolia branches with the woman who was meant to become his great love, yet his steel-blue eyes remained fixed upon the dark path beyond her shoulder. He listened until the faint sound of wheels vanished completely into the night, his expression cold and composed even as something within him tightened with every fading turn. Then he looked down at Celestine and began the conversation destiny had prepared for them, making a point to no one but himself.
He did not go after Amor.
And for the first time since their relationship began, Amor did not come back.