"Yes," he said. "We don’t even accidentally meet anymore."

"Sebastian seems harsh," Sylvia said, leaning back in her chair. "But you aren’t as good of a person as you pretend."

Nero looked at her across the candlelit table.

For a second, the restaurant around them seemed too elegant for the conversation. Too much crystal, too much dark marble, too many servers trained to pretend they had not just delivered spicy wings to a Sahan crown prince in one of Alamina’s most esteemed establishments.

Then Nero smiled faintly.

"No, I’m not," he said. "I like my family and a few people, you included, but like my father, I’m not necessarily a good person."

Sylvia did not look away.

That, she decided, was the problem with Nero. He could say something terrible with enough calm honesty that it became difficult to accuse him of hiding.

She reached for a fry. "That is not as reassuring as you think."

"It wasn’t meant to be."

"Wonderful. Dinner with moral clarity."

His mouth curved, but the amusement did not quite reach his eyes.

Sylvia watched him for another moment, then asked, "Do you want Sebastian?"

The question landed without grace.

Nero’s hand stilled around his wineglass.

Then he said, "Yes."

No hesitation. No shame. No decorative tragedy.

"I want him," Nero said, his voice low enough that even the nearby servers could pretend they heard nothing. "Nothing has changed that. Nothing will."

Sylvia’s chest tightened.

She looked down at the plate of wings because it was safer than looking at his face.

"And are you planning to use his need for stabilizing?"

Nero lifted his eyes.

For one second, the prince sitting across from her looked very much like Dax’s son. Beautiful, calm, and dangerous in a way that did not need volume to become frightening.

Then he smiled.

"How is Thomas?" he asked.

Sylvia stared at him.

The subject change was so smooth it was almost offensive.

She could have pressed. She knew that. She could have asked again, sharper this time, and forced him to decide whether to lie, confess, or walk away.

But Sylvia was not stupid.

She had learned, very quickly, that royals did not always hide things because they were ashamed. Sometimes they hid things because the truth had consequences, and everyone near it would be dragged along by the collar.

So she let the silence sit.

Then she picked up her wine.

"Thomas is in Rohan," she said. "And I am being normal about it."

Nero’s expression softened by a fraction. "Are you?"

"No," Sylvia admitted. "But I am attempting the aesthetic."

"That seems ambitious."

"It is. Thank you for noticing."

He leaned back slightly, watching her with that quiet, too-observant gaze she was beginning to dislike on principle.

Sylvia sighed. "It might become nothing."

Nero waited.

"My infatuation," she clarified, because love felt too large for a man she had known for barely a week. "It might dim. It might fade. It might become one of those humiliating little memories I think about years from now and want to throw myself into the sea."

"Palatine has no sea."

"Palatine has ocean. I’ll travel if needed."

That earned a real hint of amusement.

Sylvia turned the stem of her glass between her fingers. "I barely know him, Nero. I know he’s kind. I know he’s calm. I know he looks at people like he would rather carry pain than cause it. I know he has sad eyes and terrible self-preservation."

"That can be enough to start something."

"It can also be enough to invent something."

Nero did not argue.

That was worse.

Sylvia looked toward the window, where the city lights stretched gold and white beyond the glass. "I’m a beta. He’s a dominant alpha. He needs things I cannot give him. Even if he looked at me twice, even if this wasn’t just my brain making terrible choices, there is still biology."

"Thomas Lancaster does not strike me as a man who would mistake biology for loyalty."

Her throat tightened.

"You don’t know that."

"No," Nero said. "But I know men who would rather suffer cleanly than take what is convenient."

Sylvia laughed once, too soft to be real amusement.

"That makes it worse."

"Yes," Nero said. "Kind people usually do."

He pushed his hair back with too much elegance and reached for one of the wings.

The gesture should have been ridiculous.

It was not.

Somehow, with the candlelight catching against his pale hair and the dark gold of the restaurant folding around him, Nero looked less like a young prince eating forbidden fried food and more like a death angel who had politely stopped by the table to discuss terms.

Sylvia stared at him.

The wing in his hand did nothing to help. If anything, it made the whole thing worse. He held it with the same calm precision another man might have used to hold a poisoned flower or a signed execution order.

"But as we determined earlier," Nero continued, "I’m not a kind person."

His purple eyes pinned Sylvia in place.

"Are you a good person?"

Sylvia’s first instinct was to laugh.

Her second was to check whether the bill had already been paid, because the question felt like the beginning of a bargain, and Nero looked entirely too much like he was about to offer her something in exchange for her soul.

The table between them suddenly seemed very small.

The restaurant remained soft and golden around them, all crystal glasses and polished silver and servers gliding by with disciplined blindness. But Sylvia felt the atmosphere narrow until there was only Nero, his calm voice, and the strange pressure of his attention.

She set her wineglass down very carefully.

"That is an unsettling question to ask while holding a chicken wing."

Nero’s mouth curved. "Would it be less unsettling if I put it down?"

"No," Sylvia said. "Then both your hands would be free, and somehow that feels worse."

This time, his smile deepened.

Sylvia leaned back in her chair, but the movement did not make her feel farther away from him. "Why?"

"Because you’re fond of Thomas."

"That does not explain the soul-contract tone."

"You said he is kind. Honorable. Unlikely to take what is convenient." 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"He is."

"And you said your feelings may fade."

"They might."

"Will they?"

Sylvia opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

Nero watched her with the still patience of a creature that had never needed to chase prey because time itself eventually delivered it.

Sylvia hated him a little for that.

"I don’t know," she said finally.

"That is more honest."

"It is also less useful."

"Most honest things are."

She narrowed her eyes. "You are absolutely about to offer me something terrible."