The crowd had clustered around them enough that Faine didn't feel as opposed to talking to the man she was dancing with. Though she attempted to memorize faces and recognize where her allies were in comparison to her enemies, she was too aware of the fact that she was vulnerable in a room surrounded by those that despised mortals with every breath.

Their presence alone required a bow and the mortals that did not give it lost their heads one way or the other. Never at that moment, but when they didn't return home hours later—everyone knew. Faine knew. Ilian could end up the same if she wasn't careful. It was risky to bring a mortal along as she had, but if no one constituted their plan, the night would pass without incident.

"You're too jumpy," Ilian whispered in her ear. "Quit scanning the room so much or someone might realize that something is wrong."

Faine looked into his face, and though he spoke, she didn't recognize the way he looked at her. When all emotions vanished, when Ilian couldn't feel anymore, it was so obvious to see that he carried life within his eyes and beauty in his smile. The banquet ripped everything away and left him with a bland expression that matched the servants.

"I'm looking for Saskia. She's around here somewhere, she may arrive at any minute," Faine defended. In a casual sway, she moved Ilian in the opposite direction to give herself full attention on the open doors allowing the chilled night air inside. So the guests didn't suffocate within from the heat of too many bodies in one room. "You're not supposed to talk at all, by the way. If you've forgotten."

Her voice was low enough that Ilian strained to hear her; he dropped his head low against the side of her face and closed as much distance as he could between them without overcoming Faine entirely. To anyone else, the whispers exchanged between were nothing of interest, not with the dull look in Ilian's eyes. Word had spread by now, Ilian was underneath a geas. No one was looking at them anymore.

A slave in his own right, but carried higher than the unlucky forced to crawl.

"I have not forgotten." Ilian's warm breath grazed the pointed tip of her ear. "But no one is paying us any attention. If they were, I'd be dead by now."

Faine scoffed. "Don't say that."

Maybe it was the wine or the lack of food she'd ingested over the past day, but her stomach churned with uncertainty. In missions like these, she was always confident when Kaspar was at her side, for they protected each other. That night, in the great hall of a palace, she was with Ilian instead and it didn't make her feel all that confident.

Ilian was not weak, he hadn't shown that since the first day they met. But he was mortal. A truth Faine kept coming back to despite knowing he was more than what the immortal world labeled him as.

"You look as if you're waiting for a lover to walk in those doors," he purred. "Yet you're dancing with me." A small glimmer of amusement in his eyes, a brightening like a failed flame, disappeared before Faine could grasp it.

"To be fair, there may be some of them here tonight. Past...lovers. Yet I don't remember all their faces."

"Is that so? Must you be so notorious as to not remember those you've bed?"

Faine couldn't help her smile. "They blur together eventually, Ilian. After one hundred years, it's impossible to remember everyone," she said.

The music changed to a slower tune involving more of the sadistic rhythm of the violin. More couples flocked to the dance floor and wrapped their arms around each other, pressing their foreheads together to the point of their noses brushing. Faine didn't want to get that close, didn't deem it necessary.

"I'm certain they remember you," Ilian responded quietly after the music settled within their bones. They adjusted their gentle sway and his hand tightened onto the middle of her back.

"I'm certain the wine has gone to your head to say such a thing."

He shook his head nonchalantly. "What does it take, anyway?"

Faine's stare darted to a carriage circling around the large fountain. It stopped, the driver leapt down and opened the door, revealing an unfamiliar face. Not who Faine was looking for. She granted Ilian her full attention once more. "What do you mean?" she retorted.

"To be one of your lovers. What does it take? Do you have a special...process that eliminates certain beggars?" The corner of his mouth twitched up, creasing into a smile. As handsome as ever with the tall collar of the frock coat blending into his dark hairline.

She tilted her head, scrutinizing every inch of his face. Ilian didn't balk, nor could he. To be truthful, she wasn't entirely certain what to say or what to ask. Why was he concerned with the subject? Trying not to appear like a crazed lunatic, Faine said, "I'm very cautious with whom I choose. I take no one I don't know the background of. No strangers. It's too dangerous to risk that, especially in my line of work. Enemies or criminals will try to get their hands on anything that doesn't belong to them, including me."

The servants brought out a new wave of food on silver trays; these were steaming. Most were desserts, others were meat pies or greens rolled together to look like flowers. For the felirams or other leaf-eaters. The crowd shifted at the sight of the new food arriving; some trailed the servants while others straight-up blocked the path of the mortals and took the platters for themselves.

A mortal was nothing in that regard.

"I've always wondered what my tastes would be," Ilian ventured, eyes never once leaving hers. "I'd wish to settle down, have a family. That is, if I'm no longer a member of the guild and never became one." A careful choice of words to avoid eavesdroppers. "Do you ever wish to have a family?"

Faine stuttered over the words. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The way he looked at her expectantly, oblivious to the truth, it broke her heart. If she was about to drop one bombshell on him, she might as well spill everything at once. With limits.

"I cannot have a family, Ilian," she muttered. "I cannot...physically, I cannot."

He scoffed. "Every immortal has problems conceiving, there are ways around it."

Faine shook her head before the words were out entirely. "No, I cannot. It was decidedlong ago by wizards, by medical professionals, by seers, by anyone with an ability to know the truth—some can smell it on me. I cannot have a family because my body...it doesn't work in that regard."

Now the mortal was the one with the inability to find the right thing to say. His eyes softened in that way she hated; it meant an apology was coming. And she didn't want to hear one, she hadn't wanted to get on the subject at all but the conversation had steered itself in that direction and kicked her in the flank before she could stop it.

"I don't wish to have a family, either," she went on before Ilian could speak. She looked to the white marble floors instead of his eyes in hopes of avoiding that apologetic look. Boots and slippers shifted in her eye line. "One-hundred years ago, I lost the love of my life. He was murdered before I could do anything to stop it, and he was the only one I saw myself having a family with, even when both of us knew I couldn't have one at all. I have taken lovers over the years to dull my pain, yes, but also to remind myself that there is still happiness out there—somewhere. As long as I look for it, it's there."

It was an effort to drag her stare back to Ilian's. His lips parted, his eyes were wide, the golden glitter across his cheekbones caught in the candlelight. Faine didn't move out of his grasp, she didn't attempt to ask him what he was staring at or what he might've been thinking at that moment. She simply stared at him, and he stared back, and it was that moment that a weight removed itself from her chest.

Slivers of the truth had escaped over their friendship, but nothing would've prepared him for this. For the real reason Faine was where she was. All of it began and ended with Carlton and the life they were supposed to have. The family she desired with him, but couldn't create due to her faulty immortal body. The hate made her stronger, feeling guilty didn't.

Ever so slowly, Ilian dipped his head to rest against the side of her face once more. Faine closed her eyes as she felt the brush of his warm breath against her hair, lips close to grazing her ear. In a soothing way.

Ilian had the awkward tenderness of someone who never saw a graceful touch of love and was forced to react in the only way he knew how. Inexperienced and stiff.

"You are not the heaviness sitting within you," he breathed against her ear. Faine's entire body stilled, and it was only Ilian's movements that kept her dancing, the tightening of his hand on her back. Fingers so close to digging into the fabric. "I've always told myself to let go of illusions that tell me things could've been any different from what they turned out to be. The world is unpredictable, it is not kind, but it's about your happiness. Only your happiness."

He pulled his face away from hers, slowly, and it relieved Faine to find the familiar light in his eyes had returned. Her heart contorted itself to fight the incoming softness of staring into his eyes and finding peace, but Faine didn't allow that battle to start. She'd allow him in to do as he pleased, whatever he wished. She couldn't say no to a handsome face and innocent eyes. It wasn't in her nature to question.

Faine swallowed the lump in her throat. "I've been thinking a lot lately. About taking chances." Her hand slid from the back of his neck and she fiddled with the golden chain keeping the lapels of his frock coat together. "My entire life has been about overcoming my fears and facing obstacles I would otherwise cower against. And I don't—"

Her stare darted across the room, to the open doors, and she recognized a familiar face. Exactly who she was waiting for. Faine's fingers stilled around the golden chain and Ilian followed her stare towards the feliram that had just entered with a group of her own, all of them with horns on their heads. Celestia wasn't lying.

Saskia wasn't afraid to make herself known in Pinedon, precisely why Faine recognized her so easily. Her caramel skin glittered with gold, too, and the cherry curls on her head extended well beyond her waist. Saskia grabbed onto the skirts of her fitting gown and picked them up so she could climb the stairs with minimal effort, her group following closely behind.

A feliram at the front pushed back the curtain to a hidden room and checked the inside before allowing everyone to disappear within. They filtered in without another look back. Already, Faine had forgotten where her mind was going and what she might've done if she kept speaking. Both their minds were already working to figure out exactly how to get inside that hidden room without being kicked out, or worse. Killed by a suspicious feliram that didn't care for any kind other than her own.