The torch at St. Andries hissed and guttered in the wind, throwing a thin, unsteady ring of light across the square. The rest of the night pressed close: February cold, a smell of damp stone and river, the far-off thrum of Carnival like a heartbeat muffled by walls. Katelijne slipped out of the alley and paused under the chapel eaves, breath fogging in the air.
He was already there. Joseph.
Not waiting like the nights before, stiff with doubt and hope, but leaning against the chapel gate as though he belonged to the dark itself. His head lifted when she appeared. No you came this time. Only a quick smile, crooked and small, as though he dared not spend it all at once.
'You're early,' he said. 'I thought Pietje might round the corner first and scold me for hoping.'
The words startled laughter out of her, sharp and light in the cold air. 'If the bird had come in your place, I'd have turned back at once.'
'A wise choice. He talks too much.' His grin widened, then slipped, colour rising to his face. 'And kisses worse.'
Heat leapt into her cheeks. She covered her mouth, shocked into a silence that felt warmer than speech. He rubbed at his neck, sheepish, and she almost laughed again, half from nerves, half from the ridiculous joy of it.
They began to walk, slowly, tracing the square's edge like conspirators. She told him, in low tones, of the dinner at the van den Bergs, of Hendrik's booming pronouncements and Aleydis's sugar-sweet barbs. Her fingers tightened remembering the portraits on the wall, those painted eyes that made every word taste like a test.
Joseph countered with his own tale: Joos juggling a tankard and a crust, only to spill ale down his boots and bow so grandly the apprentices thought it part of the jest. She bit back a laugh but failed, a snort slipping free. For a little while it felt like walking through a tale spun for them alone, the noise of Carnival far away, the torch their only witness.
Her step slowed. The laughter faded from her lips. 'I wish…' She faltered, the word catching.
'What do you wish?'
'That this were ordinary,' she said. 'Not stolen in corners. To do something simple. To walk in daylight. To listen to music without counting the minutes. To dance.' Her throat tightened. 'Once, just once, without eyes judging me.'
The confession startled her more than him. He only looked at her, gaze steady, as though he had been waiting for her to say it.
'Perhaps,' he said at last, 'it needn't all be shadows.'
Her pulse jumped. 'What do you mean?'
'There's a barn, outside the walls,' he said, careful now. 'Tomorrow. Carnival dancers, journeymen, washerwomen, all the city's strays. No portraits on the walls there, no fathers weighing every word. Isabelle thought…' He hesitated. 'She thought you might come. In disguise.'
The word landed sharp. Disguise. She imagined Isabelle's clothes: coarse wool, a patched cloak that smelled of smoke and onion, a cap tugged down to hide her hair. Not pearls, not rosaries, but rags.
Her stomach turned. 'You mock me.'
'Never,' he said quickly.
'Her clothes?' The words cut before she could temper them.
'Plain things,' he said. 'A gown, a cloak. Enough to pass unnoticed.'
'Everything shameful,' she whispered. She pressed cold fingers to her lips, horrified at herself. 'Forgive me. I mean… I don't know how to be that. I was not made for it.'
'No one is made for anything until they step into it,' he said gently. 'You would be only a girl at a dance. Nothing more.'
Dance. The word pressed heat into her chest, frightening and bright. She let herself picture it — the scrape of fiddles, a circle of feet, laughter that wasn't cruel. For a breath she almost leaned toward it. Then fear bit back.
'It is madness.'
'So is this,' he said, sweeping his hand at the square where they stood. 'And still we do it.'
The truth of it stilled her.
'And Isabelle?' she asked at last, testing.
'She would thunder,' Joseph said, with a quick grin, 'and then she would tie your hair with a strip of red and pretend she never did.'
The thought was absurd, impossible — and yet a thread of temptation wound through it.
'What if I freeze?' she whispered. 'What if I cannot move? They would laugh.'
'They always laugh,' he said softly. 'The trick is to choose what the laughter buys you. A memory you chose, or a fear you let win.'
She met his eyes then, and the steadiness there frightened her more than the risk. He meant it. He would throw himself into folly, into danger, just to give her that choice.
'You'd do that for me?'
'I'd put Pietje on my head and tumble till the floor shook,' he said, solemn as a vow.
This time she did laugh, helplessly, the sound ringing brighter than the torch.
They circled the square again, silence weaving between them, comfortable and dangerous. The torch hissed. The wind brought the smell of river and smoke.
'And if we are seen?' she asked.
'Then they will hiss at a fool,' he said. 'That is no new thing.'
Her throat tightened. He offered it so simply, so freely — to take the shame for her, to carry it as if it were nothing. She had been praised, protected, paraded. No one had ever offered that. Not like this.
'I cannot promise,' she said.
'I don't ask you to,' he answered.
The torch spat sparks, and she thought suddenly of Isabelle's sharp eyes, of Bram's measuring smirk, of her father's ledgered pride. And yet over them all she heard her own laughter, unguarded, only moments ago.
'I must think this over,' she said, needing to push it away. 'Perhaps.'
'Perhaps,' he echoed, and the word felt like a promise kept.
They stopped beneath the chapel's wall. His cloak brushed her shoulder as the wind pressed close. He lifted a hand as if to touch hers, stopped just shy, and she found herself mirroring him. Their palms hovered an inch apart, nothing between them but the winter night.
For a heartbeat neither moved. Then his fingers shifted, closing the distance, their hands fitting together, tentative but certain. The warmth of his skin startled her — rough with calluses, steady despite the tremor in hers. He searched her eyes, as though asking without words, and when she did not draw back, he bent nearer.
The world seemed to still. The hiss of the torch, the sigh of the wind, even the restless hum of Carnival faded until there was only the press of his breath against her cheek. His lips touched hers — not bold, not hurried, but lingering, gentle, as though the kiss itself might break if held too hard.
Her eyes fluttered closed. The cold stone at her back, the winter air at her throat, all melted into the warmth of that single touch. For the first time she felt no weight of expectation, no gaze to measure her. Only the quiet truth of him, offered without demand.
When at last they parted, their foreheads lingered close, breath mingling in the narrow space between. Neither spoke. There was no need.
'Go,' he said softly. 'Before your brother's shadow finds me.'
'He is kinder than he looks.'
'He looks like a man who could knock me through a wall with only his disappointment.'
She laughed again, quick and low, and drew her hood close.
She did not look back as she slipped into the alley. But she felt him still at the edge of the square, a warmth the dark could not swallow.
Her steps quickened. The streets carried her home through laughter, through shutters banging, through Carnival's restless hum. Once she paused, breath caught — certain of footsteps behind her. But when she turned, there was only her own shadow stretching long across the stones.
By the time she reached her chamber, the house was quiet. She lit a single candle and sat with its flame flickering on the scrap of parchment she had hidden beneath her linen. Joseph's first note. The smudged charcoal words seemed to glow brighter for all she had heard tonight.
She traced them with her finger, her lips shaping them silently.
Could she go to the dance?
The house lay hushed when she returned, the hearth burned to embers, the rafters creaking overhead. Katelijne slipped off her cloak, moving lightly, yet her pulse still drummed with what had just passed — the press of Joseph's lips, the warmth of his hand in hers. She held it close, a spark she dared not show.
On the landing, a door stood half-open. Edwin's. Candlelight spilled in a thin line across the boards.
She hesitated, then pushed it wider. He sat at his desk, sleeves rolled, the ledger open but his pen idle. He looked up at once, as though he had been waiting.
'You've been following me,' she said before her courage failed. Her voice shook, but she forced it steady. 'To St. Andries. To the alleys. I saw you.'
He did not deny it. His gaze was cool, unreadable. 'You are my sister. And you are playing with fire.'
Heat rose to her cheeks. 'So you admit it — spying like a thief in the dark.'
'I've guarded you,' he said, quiet but firm. 'This city hides wolves as well as lambs. You think yourself safe, but you are not.'
The truth of it pricked, but defiance swelled sharper still. 'And I cannot live forever behind locked doors. Tonight I thought—' She faltered, then rushed on. 'A barn outside Antwerp. A Carnival dance, where no one would know me. They would lend me clothes. Just once, I could be free.'
Edwin's eyes narrowed. 'You would go to such a place? Dressed as one of them?'
She looked away, shame and longing twined together. 'I want to. More than anything. But I cannot. You know I cannot. Floris, Mama, Father — they would never forgive it.'
The candle hissed in the silence that followed. At last Edwin drew a slow breath. 'And yet,' he said, his voice low, steady, 'before you are bound to Floris and to duty, you deserve to know the shape of your own choosing. If you go, you will not go alone. I will cover for you.'
Her head snapped up, breath catching. 'You would—'
His look held hers, sharp and unyielding, but beneath it something gentler flickered. 'Better with my help than without it. Play with fire, Katelijne, but not without a guard at your side.'