Kidara slipped off her shoes at the bottom of the servants' stair and climbed barefoot toward the roof. Music from the hall below faded with each step. She wanted ten minutes alone under her own small string of lights, ten minutes that didn't ask her to smile or marry well. She pushed open the narrow door and stepped onto the tiles. Someone was already there. A man knelt beside a long scroll weighted at its corners with stones. Elven script curled across it, and a painted princess held up her hands to a sickened sky. He looked up without flinching. "You must be the one who hides up here," Zade said. "I was hoping you'd come." Kidara did not run. She sat down across from him on the cold tiles, and for the first time in a long while, she did not look for the exit. The floating lanterns drifted above them, soft and gold, turning the rooftop into a small world of its own. Zade tapped the scroll. "They sent me to ask if you'd help read it. I told them I'd rather ask you up here." Kidara almost laughed. He had climbed past every polished room to find her on the tiles. She pulled the scroll closer. "Then stay," she said, "and we'll read it together." They bent over the faded lines, shoulders nearly touching. Zade did not correct her posture. He did not glance at her bare feet. When she stumbled on a word, he waited. Kidara felt the careful door inside her chest ease open a crack. Below, the music swelled for a dance she would not attend. Up here, a stranger had stayed past the first awkward minute. That, she decided, was a beginning worth keeping.