Lucía

“Her shudder turned into a shiver as a urry of snowakes whirled past.

She squinted upward, astonished to see that the sky, which had been blue just minutes ago, was now falling with soft winter clouds. White flakes spiraled downward, spinning past the Royal Library’s dome, swirling around the bronze pegasus atop its spire, which she was convinced now reared in a slightly different position than before.

Nathaniel had also stopped to take in the view. “Do you remember the last time it snowed in Hemlock Park?”

“Of course.” Blood rushed to her cheeks at the look he was giving her. How could she forget? The frost and the candlelight, the way time had seemed to stop when they kissed, and how he had parted her
dressing gown so carefully, with only one hand—

She wasn’t sure which of them leaned in first. For a moment nothing existed outside the brush of their lips, tentative at rst, and then the heat of their mouths, all-consuming.

“I seem to recall,” Nathaniel murmured as she twined a hand into his hair, “that this”—another kiss —“is a public street.”

“The street wouldn’t exist without us,” she replied. “The public wouldn’t, either.”

The kiss went on, blissful, until someone whistled nearby.”
― Margaret Rogerson, Sorcery of Thorns