Radeon began the ascent with his hands empty and his mind already elsewhere.
The dried tree that served as a door did what it always did. It shifted when no eyes were on it.
It changed its angle. He stepped out into the cellar beneath his pavilion.
Radeon paused long enough to listen for footsteps. None. Above, the pavilion creaked with the mountain wind.
Someone was watching all the same. Fay stood on the porch of her own villa, eyes fixed toward the pavilion.
Her heart still had not settled from the earlier sin she had committed.
Radeon had been reading her long enough to see the shape of it.
The hunger to give what she had, the want to make amends, tangled in her body's desire.
She was young. Nineteen. That was young even for mortals, and for the life Radeon was building, youth was a flammable thing.
He did not ponder her thoughts any further. He stepped out.
Fay startled like a rabbit hearing a bowstring. Her eyes widened, then narrowed, confusion chasing fear.
