Damen stepped closer, and Laurent felt it as if a wave bearing down on him, his presence nearly a physical touch until it was one. The pads of Damen's fingers against his cheek were so exquisitely delicate that he felt his eyes close, a small tremor passing through him until the touch fell away.

'With two good men on the throne,' he said, 'Why not?' Theomedes must have been one, to raise a man like Damen. 'Perhaps it would not have been me you wished to court at all,' Laurent noted, opening his eyes. 'I am half the man that Auguste was.'