Chapter 3

The air inside the planetarium had grown heavy, thick with the scent of old velvet and the cool, metallic tang of polished brass. It was a suffocating intimacy, the kind that settles in the lungs before it touches the skin. I had been standing there for what felt like hours, though I knew it was only been twenty minutes since the main event concluded and the crowd had begun to disperse. The great dome above us was still projecting a slow, swirling galaxy, stars drifting across the curved ceiling like dust motes in a sunbeam, but I couldn’t focus on them. I could only focus on him. He stood just beside me, towering in his tailored suit, the fabric dark and expensive against the dim light. He hadn’t said a word for the last five minutes, just watched me with that predatory stillness, his eyes dark and unreadable in the low luminescence. I shifted my weight, the heel of my left shoe pinching the ball of my foot, a sharp, stinging reminder of the day’s long walk through the observatory grounds. I tried to ignore it, to maintain the facade of composure I’d been wearing like armor, but my foot