Free Winter by Marissa Meyer Page B

the details.”
    It helped keep her thoughts in order, helped keep her sanity. She’d started having the hallucinations when she was thirteen, a little more than a year after she’d made the decision to never again use her glamour, to never again manipulate someone’s thoughts or emotions, to never again fool herself into believing such an unnatural use of power could be harmless. Jacin, not yet a guard, had spent many hours with her, distracting her with games and projects and puzzles. Idleness had been her enemy for years. It was in those moments when her mind was most focused on a task, no matter how trivial, that she felt safest.
    Making the model without him hadn’t been as much fun, but she did enjoy the sensation of being in control of this tiny galaxy, when she was in control of so very little of her own life.
    “What do you think?”
    With a resigned sigh, Jacin stepped forward to examine the contraption that gave each planet its own orbital path. “How did you make it?”
    “I commissioned Mr. Sanford in AR-5 to design and build the framework. But I did all the painting myself.” She was pleased to see Jacin’s impressed nod. “I hoped you might be able to help me with Saturn. It’s the last one to be painted, and I thought—I’ll take the rings, if you want to do the planet…” She trailed off. His expression had hardened again. Following his fingers, she saw him batting Luna around the Earth—the way Mr. Sanford had given Luna its own little orbit around the blue planet was nothing short of brilliant, in Winter’s opinion.
    “I’m sorry, Highness,” said Jacin, standing upright again. “I’m on duty. I shouldn’t even be in here, and you know that.”
    “I’m quite sure I don’t know that. It seems you can guard me even better from in here than out there. What if someone comes in through the windows?”
    His lips quirked into a wry smile. No one was going to come in through the windows, they both knew, but he didn’t argue the point. Instead, he stepped closer and settled his hands on her shoulders. It was a rare, unexpected touch. Not quite the Eclipse Waltz, but her skin tingled all the same.
    “I’m glad to be on your guard now,” he said. “I would do anything for you. If you did have an assassin under your bed, I would take that bullet without a second thought, without anyone having to manipulate me.”
    She tried to interrupt him, but he talked over her.
    “But when I’m on duty, that’s all I can be. Your guard. Not your friend. Levana already knows I’m too close to you, that I care about you more than I should—”
    Her brow drew together, and again she tried to interject, thinking that statement deserved further explanation, but he kept talking.
    “—and I am not going to give her anything else to hold over me. Or you. I’m not going to be another pawn in her game. Got it?”
    Finally, a pause, and her head was swimming, trying to hold on to his declaration— what do you mean you care about me more than you should? —without contradicting his concerns.
    “We are already pawns in her game,” she said. “I have been a pawn in her game since the day she married my father, and you since the day you were conscripted into her guard.”
    His lips tensed and he moved to pull his hands away, the extended contact overstepping a thousand of his professional boundaries, but Winter reached up and wrapped her hands around his. She held them tight, bundling both of their hands between them.
    “I just thought…” She hesitated, her attention caught on how much bigger his hands were compared with the last time she’d held them. It was a startling realization. “I thought it might be nice to step off the game board every now and then.”
    One of Jacin’s thumbs rubbed against her fingers—just once, like a tic that had to be stifled.
    “That would be nice,” he said, “but it can’t be while I’m on duty, and it really can’t be behind closed doors.”
    Winter