I stopped chasing.
I let a little frustration show on my face, the right amount, the amount she seemed to want from me. The outmatched man. The one who couldn't quite keep up.
"Come on, Alyssara," I called, and put a strained, exasperated edge in it. "Stop dancing. Afraid to stand still? Let me touch you."
It was crude. It was aimed squarely at the thing in her that wanted to win by holding, by owning, by having her hands on whatever she'd won. And for one instant, too short to measure, her shifting stuttered. Part of her wanted to keep her precious distance. Part of her wanted to take the challenge and close her fingers round me. Those two wants arrived at the same moment, and for a sliver of a sliver of a second, her grip on the room lagged.
Less than the blink of a blink. Nothing most Radiants would ever notice. But two years under my mother had been spent learning to find exactly that kind of seam, and I'd been watching for it since dinner.
'Now.'
