The knock comes at the hour when even the palace seems to hold its breath.

I'm awake—I haven't slept in three days, not since the papyrus arrived, not since I've been waiting for the axe to fall. My hands shake as I organize scrolls that don't need organizing, sorting them by date, by scribe, by the angle of the handwriting. Anything to keep my fingers busy and away from my own throat.

When the knock comes, I nearly jump out of my skin.

It's not the tentative tap of a servant. It's authoritative. Measured. The knock of someone who expects to be obeyed.

I shove the scrolls behind my back like a child caught stealing fruit and call out, "Enter."

The door opens and my lungs forget how to work.

Khaemwaset stands in the doorway of my small scribal chamber, silhouetted against the lamplight from the corridor. He's still in his formal regalia—the gold pectoral catching the light, the double crown's shadow falling across his face—but there's something furtive about the way he glances behind him before stepping inside. The way he closes the door with deliberate quietness.

The way he looks at me like he's been thinking about me for three days too.

"Your Majesty," I say, and my voice sounds like it's coming from someone else's throat. Someone braver. Someone stupider. "This is highly irregular."

"Everything about this is irregular." He moves toward me with that economical grace, each step purposeful, and the scent of sandalwood and frankincense reaches me before he does. Underneath it—that spiced honey warmth that I've started dreaming about. "I've been thinking about your words."

"Which ones?" I'm standing now, though I don't remember deciding to stand. My scribal table is between us like a barrier, like it matters. "I write many words. Some of them are even competent."

"The ones about knowing someone." He stops on the opposite side of the table, close enough that I can see the exact shade of lapis in his eyes. Close enough that I can count his eyelashes if I'm being pathetic, which I absolutely am not. "The ones about being truly seen."

My mouth is dry.

This is dangerous. This is catastrophically, irreversibly dangerous. A Pharaoh visiting a scribe's chamber in the dead of night. A Pharaoh looking at me like I'm something precious instead of something disposable.

I should send him away.

Instead, I say, "I thought we were past the poetry."

"We are." He leans forward, his palms flat on the table. "I'm here because I need to tell you something, and I can't do it where anyone might hear."

The way he's looking at me—like I'm the only real thing in a palace full of performance and lies—makes me want to both run and move closer. My body chooses the latter, traitorous thing that it is.

"Tell me what?" I'm moving around the table, drawn by something I can't name and don't want to examine too closely. "That you've decided to actually read the marriage contract you signed? That you've noticed the woman you're betrothed to is about as warm as a limestone statue?"

"That I can't stop thinking about you." He says it like it's a confession, like it costs him something. "That I haven't slept. That every moment away from you feels like I'm suffocating."

Oh, gods.

I stop moving. I should stop moving. But we're close now—close enough that if I took a step forward, I could rest my forehead against his chest. Close enough that I can see the rapid pulse in his throat, the slight tremor in his jaw.

"You can't think about me," I say, and my voice has gone very quiet. "You're not supposed to think about me. I'm the scribe. I'm invisible. I'm supposed to be invisible."

"You were never invisible." He reaches out, and his hand hovers between us like he's asking permission. "From the moment I read your words, you were the only visible thing in this entire palace."

I should step back.

I don't.

His hand finds my face, his thumb tracing my cheekbone with a gentleness that makes my chest ache. His skin is warm, callused at the fingertips—not from writing, but from holding weapons, from bearing the weight of a crown. When he touches me, I understand why people write poetry. Why they start wars. Why they make terrible, catastrophic choices.

"This is madness," I whisper.

"Completely." His other hand comes up, cradling my face like I'm something that might break. "I don't care."

He lowers his forehead to mine, and we breathe the same air for a moment that stretches like honey. My hands are fisted at my sides because if I touch him back, if I let myself touch him, I won't be able to stop. I'll pull him closer. I'll demand things I have no right to demand. I'll become the kind of person who believes in happy endings, and that's a person who gets destroyed.

"Khaemwaset—"

"Say my name again." His voice is rough. "Say it like that. Like it matters."

"It does matter." I pull back just enough to look at him, and the vulnerability in his expression undoes something in my chest. "That's the problem. You matter. And I can't—I can't be the reason you lose everything."

"You're not." His hands drop to my shoulders, and he's looking at me with an intensity that makes me want to confess everything—my past, my fears, the way my hands shake when I think about losing him. "You're the reason I want to keep something."

Before I can respond, before I can tell him all the reasons this is impossible, there's a sound in the corridor. Footsteps. Multiple sets, moving in our direction.

Khaemwaset's entire body goes rigid.

I move on pure instinct, pulling him toward the back corner of my chamber where the shadows are deepest. It's not much—just the space behind my storage shelves—but it's something. He goes without protest, his hand finding mine in the darkness. His pulse races beneath my fingers where I'm gripping his wrist.

The footsteps grow closer.

I can hear voices now. Servants, by the sound of them, carrying something heavy. They pass my door without stopping, their voices fading as they move deeper into the palace.

We stand in the darkness for a long moment, neither of us breathing. His hand is still gripping mine like I might disappear.

"That was too close," I finally whisper.

"I know." But he doesn't let go. "I don't care."

"You should care." I pull my hand away—it takes all the strength I have—and step back into the lamplight. "You're the Pharaoh. I'm a scribe. If anyone saw you here—"

"I know what I am." There's an edge to his voice now. "I've always known. I was born knowing. Groomed from infancy to be a god in human form, to never want anything for myself, to never need anything that wasn't carefully approved by the priesthood and the council."

He follows me out of the shadows, and I can see the anger in him now—not at me, but at the cage his life has become.

"When I was seven years old, my father took me to the temples to pray." He moves to my window, looking out at the palace gardens bathed in moonlight. "I asked him if the gods ever got lonely. He told me that gods don't feel loneliness. That wanting something for yourself was a weakness, a failure of duty."

I watch him, this man who holds the power of a nation in his hands and can't touch me without risking everything.

"Did you believe him?" I ask quietly.

"No." He turns back to me. "I've never believed him. But I spent twenty-three years pretending to, because the alternative was accepting that I was broken. That wanting something—someone—more than duty was a flaw in my character."

He moves toward me again, and this time I don't back away.

"Then I read your words," he continues. "And I realized I wasn't broken. I was just waiting for permission to be human."

My throat tightens.

"You can't have permission," I say, and the words taste like ash. "Not from me. Not from anyone. Permission isn't what you need."

"Then what do I need?" He's close again, so close I can feel the heat radiating from his body. "Tell me, Amara. You're the one with all the words."

I should tell him to leave. I should tell him this is impossible. I should tell him the truth—that I'm terrified of what happens when people get close to me, that everyone I've ever loved has either abandoned me or been taken away, that loving him will destroy me in ways I don't have the strength to survive.

Instead, I find myself telling him something I've never told anyone.

"When I was eight years old, my mother sold me to a scribe's workshop." The words come out flat, detached—the way I've learned to talk about my own trauma. "She needed money for food. She promised she'd come back for me when things got better. I waited every day for three years. I learned to read and write because the master scribe said it would make me more valuable, more likely to be ransomed. I thought if I was valuable enough, she'd want me back."

Khaemwaset doesn't say anything. He just listens, and somehow that's worse than if he'd tried to comfort me.

"She never came back." I wrap my arms around myself. "She died of plague in the slums. I found out years later, after I'd already stopped waiting. After I'd convinced myself that I didn't need her anyway. That needing people was the fastest way to get destroyed."

"Amara—"

"I've spent my entire life being careful." I cut him off before he can offer me pity or comfort or any of the things that will break me completely. "Being small. Being useful. Being disposable so that when people left, it wouldn't matter. And it worked. I survived. I got free. I built a life where I don't need anyone, and no one can hurt me by leaving."

I look at him, and my eyes are burning.

"And then you read my words, and suddenly I'm thinking about you constantly. I'm reckless. I'm risking everything. I'm becoming the kind of person who could be destroyed by losing you, and I can't—" My voice cracks. "I can't do that again. I can't survive that again."

He moves before I can stop him, and suddenly I'm against his chest, his arms around me, his hand cradling the back of my head. He smells like sandalwood and honey and power, and I'm trembling against him like I'm made of paper instead of bone.

"You're not going to lose me," he says into my hair.

"You don't know that." I grip his linen shirt, needing something solid to hold onto. "You're betrothed to a princess. You have a throne to think about. You have an entire nation that depends on you. One day you're going to wake up and realize that I'm not worth the complications. That duty matters more than—"

"Stop." He pulls back just enough to look at me, his hands framing my face again. "Listen to me. I've spent my entire life doing what I was supposed to do. I've been the perfect Pharaoh-in-waiting. I've studied politics and warfare and the will of the gods. I've learned to want what's best for Egypt instead of what's best for me. And do you know what I've learned?"

I shake my head, unable to speak.

"That I'm tired." His eyes are fierce, determined. "I'm tired of performing. I'm tired of being what everyone expects me to be. And the only time I feel real, the only time I feel like myself, is when I'm reading your words or looking at you or thinking about you when I should be thinking about anything else."

He kisses me before I can tell him he's being irrational.

It's not gentle. It's desperate and fierce and everything I've been terrified of—it consumes me completely, erases every boundary I've carefully constructed, makes me forget why I decided that loving someone was a liability instead of a possibility.

His hands tangle in my hair, pulling the braid loose, and I'm pressing closer, my fingers digging into his shoulders. He tastes like honey and danger, and I'm drowning in the scent of sandalwood and frankincense and something uniquely him—something that's already become more necessary to me than oxygen.

When he pulls back, we're both breathing hard.

"Nefertari—" I start.

"I don't care about Nefertari." He's still holding me close, his forehead against mine. "I don't care about the alliance or the priesthood or what anyone expects. I care about you. I want you. I'm going to have you, and I'm going to figure out the rest later."

"That's not how duty works—"

"I don't want duty anymore." He pulls back enough to look at me, and there's something dangerous in his expression. "I want to choose. I want to choose you. And I'm going to."

There's a sound from the corridor—closer this time. Actual voices. Actual servants moving with purpose.

Khaemwaset curses under his breath, a very un-Pharaoh-like expression that somehow makes me love him more.

"I have to go," he says, and it sounds like it costs him something. "But I'm coming back. Tomorrow night. The same time. There's a garden pavilion on the east side of the palace. No one uses it. Meet me there."

"That's insane." But I'm already nodding. "Someone will see you."

"Then we'll be careful." He's moving toward the door, straightening his regalia, trying to look like he hasn't just been kissing a scribe in her chamber. "Will you come?"

I should say no.

I've spent my entire life saying no to things that could destroy me.

"Yes," I whisper.

He pauses at the door, and the look he gives me—like I'm the most precious thing in his world—makes my chest ache.

"Don't change your mind," he says.

"I'm very good at changing my mind." I'm already regretting this. Already terrified. Already completely committed. "I might not come."

"You'll come." He says it with absolute certainty, like he knows me better than I know myself. Maybe he does. "Because you're as tired of being small as I am of being controlled. And because you want this as much as I do."

He's right, which is infuriating.

"If we get caught—" I start.

"We won't." He opens the door carefully, checking the corridor. "And if we do, I'm the Pharaoh. I'll figure it out."

"That's not reassuring."

"I know." He glances back at me one last time, and his eyes are burning. "Tomorrow night. Don't make me wait."

He's gone before I can respond, slipping out into the corridor and closing the door behind him with barely a sound.

I stand alone in my chamber, my heart racing, my lips still tingling, my entire body vibrating with the aftereffects of his touch.

This is catastrophically stupid.

This is reckless and dangerous and will almost certainly end with me destroyed and him forced to choose between me and his throne.

I should not go tomorrow night.

I absolutely will.

I sink into my chair and bury my face in my hands, and for the first time since I was eight years old, I let myself cry.