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She’s not mine to touch, and I’m certainly not about to expose her to strangers who don’t deserve to see her.

“Please,” she pants.

I brush my thumb across the swell of her lower lip, and she licks it. I forget every good intention I have.

Sliding a knee between hers, I take care not to lift her skirts any higher than her calves as I pin her to the wall. “Find what you need.”

She blinks, confused at first, and then the candlelight turns her eyes molten as I nudge my leg up slightly. There’s nowhere for her to go except down the length of my thigh.

She rocks her hips forward along my quad muscle, then back, finding her way down to the bony ridge of my kneecap. Her breath hitches, and she holds still as she hits the right spot, lingering. Slow and steady, she begins circling her hips.

A pin falls from her hair, and I tuck a stray strand behind her ear, my muscles tightening against my skeleton as I restrain myself from cupping her cheek.

That softness isn’t for me, and anyways, I’m content to stay like this, watching her work herself into a frenzy.

She starts swiveling more quickly, grinding with more intensity.

My own belly is clenching as her hips jerk with the sudden spurts of an unexpected climax. She grabs my shoulders, flushed and incredulous, a happy sigh dying on her lips as her eyes slide to the right. To Darcy.

Her tailbone arches back, her euphoria fading with a flood of mixed feelings. I straighten my leg, and she fixes her dress, hiding deeper in her cloak as she strides past me.

“Please show me to our seats,” she says, and I wince from the sharp drop in her emotions.

The cocktail cart is only a short distance from the door to our private viewing room. I could show Cordelia in and grab a drink, numb the excess pain piled on top of my own for a bit.

I grasp the handle, considering it.

“Please everyone, find your way to your seats,” an usher calls. “The show begins in five minutes.”

I wipe the sweat from my forehead and forgo the drink. Heading into the stall overlooking the rest of the theater, I slide the glass beads covering the opening to one side so that we can see.

Cordelia drops into one of the plush seats, pulling her hand off the armrest and into her lap when I sit down beside her.

The tension between us pulls tight. Five minutes feel like an hour as the silence stretches on.

The curtain finally lifts, revealing a boat where a man dressed in fishing clothes is hunched over a dulcimer. He plucks his strings and sings a story about a fisherman falling hopelessly in love with a mermaid.

Dancers pirouette across the stage, their blue tulle skirts forming a whirlpool as beautiful women spin down from silver poles, naked except for the scales painted on their bodies.

Cordelia leans forward, and I study her expression, wishing I could revert to my formless aether and watch it all from her perspective. A podium rises from a hole in the center of the stage, hoisting a large pearlescent oyster above the wave of dancers.

Judging by the reaction of the audience, it opens to display something marvelous, but my eyes are on Cordelia.

“It’s her,” she says, and I look to where her gaze is fixed.

A woman sits atop a pink velvet cushion, a fin of blue sequins glittering over the edge of the oyster shell. Her straight black hair falls past the bountiful curves of her breasts and waist, her fair white skin coated in a silver sheen. Silver stars lower from behind the curtain, and dancers move to opposite ends of the stage, waving long strips of blue fabric between them.

Cordelia’s eyes well up again as the selkie begins to sing, her notes high and sweet, the ghost of an Ocean Voice haunting the melody. She can’t harness it fully without wearing her seal skin, but patrons will still throw down plenty of money for her voice and beauty, never knowing what she is.

The crowd erupts with applause as the show ends, and a pearlescent tear rolls down the selkie’s cheek right before the curtain drops.

“I’m going to find the dressing room,” I say. “Wait here.”

I pinch myself away from her and follow the selkie as she moves backstage, locating the best route to take to get to her from our seats. Cordelia takes my hand with a sniff when I reappear, and we push against the stream of the crowd to reach the back of the theater.

A low song drifts from the selkie’s dressing room, but it cuts off the moment I knock, and there’s an obvious hush of a held breath before a low, sultry voice says, “Patrons aren’t permitted backstage.”

“A friend sent us,” Cordelia says. “He told us you might be able to share some knowledge about the Order of the Undine.”