Widow Morton didn’t look at her daughter but at Aria. “I cannever forget the last time one of my children was alone with royalty.”
“She didn’t hurt me,” Lettie whispered.
“So I see.”
Aria caught her breath once more, daring to feel a thin spark of hope. One thing was certain: If she surrendered now, Widow Morton and the king would both continue their forward rampages. The kingdom would go to war. Even without weapons, without magic or means, Aria would fight to her final breath to prevent that. She was the only one who could.
She thought of her own mother, remembered her words in the music room, urging Aria to do what was right. She still didn’t know what was right.
But she agreed with Baron.
We all get it wrong, so perhaps the answer is simply mercy. Mercy for others, and mercy for ourselves.
“I was Lettie’s age,” Aria said. “My twelfth birthday—Were you there? Most of court was—when I announced my mother had named me after the only thing she ever loved.”
Widow Morton raised an eyebrow but attempted no murder. For the moment.
“I believed that for years—until I realized my mother’s name is Marian. ‘Aria’ is the heart of it.” She gestured around the room. “‘Clarissa’ and ‘Charles’ don’t quite line up the same, but Charlie was your heart, wasn’t he?”
The widow snorted quietly. “What a foolish question.”
She stepped to the dresser, lifting a small, decorative box that had been perfectly centered upon it. After feeling at the neckline of her dress, she pulled out a key on a thin chain and used it to wind the music box, which echoed with a tinkling lullaby. The box was painted in soft pastels, with the silhouette of a dancer across the lid.
Lettie smiled, wiping her nose. “Charlie’s music box.”
“I had this made before his birth,” Widow Morton said, “when I was certain I was having a girl. But Charlie loved it all the same. He wouldn’t sleep without it, even as a teenager. I think he did it half to tease me. He was always ...”
Her free hand curled into a fist, pressing white-knuckled against the dresser. Whether she trembled with grief or rage, Aria couldn’t tell. Perhaps both. Surely both.
She didn’t know what conversations Widow Morton might have had with her father between Charlie’s death and her hostile letter, but she knew what would have been absent from all of them—an apology. That was something her father could never give. He had to be right.
In the face of that, Aria couldn’t blame the woman before her for wanting to crack foundations and watch things fall.
“I’m sorry,” Aria whispered. “I’m so sorry for what my family did to yours.”
Widow Morton whirled, music box clutched in one hand, poised to smash it to the ground, but Aria leapt forward and caught her hand, their bare fingers overlapping around the fragile box. A shiver ran down her arm at the thought of what the Caster could do with a touch, but she did not retreat.
Widow Morton stared into her soul with wild eyes, a deep gash across her cheek scabbed with fresh blood. “Twiceyou have come into my home with empty words! I tried to listen, but in that hollow, I heard only the screams of my son.”
“I can’t fix it,” Aria said, voice breaking. “I wish I could. Nothing can.”
“Excuses! When Peregrine murdered Charlie, he offered excuses, and now—”
“Ican’tfix it,” Aria repeated. “Not if I write a thousand peace treaties, not if I die a hundred deaths. Youcan’tfix it. Not if you kill every member of my family, not if you collapse the entire kingdom. Your son is gone. We can’t fix that.Nothing can.”
Widow Morton recoiled, leaving Aria holding the music box. The woman stared at it.
“But if you let me,” Aria pleaded, cradling the box, shielding it in both hands, “I will protect your daughter. I’m sure I’ll make mistakes—more than I want to; worse than I want to—but I will fix them. I’ll learn. I’ll negotiate and study andlistenuntil I find the path forward.
“When I sat with you the first time, you asked what reparationsIcould make, whatIcould offer. This is what I want. Please just let me, and I’ll protect instead of destroy.”
Lettie darted from the chair, wrapping her arms around her mother.
Slowly, the anger drained from Widow Morton’s expression, leaving behind a pale emptiness. The widow held to her daughter.
“I believe you, Highness,” she said softly. “But it’s too late. I can no longer break the Cast. I felt it when we touched just now. The curse has grown beyond my reach, and I have doomed us both.”
Just as quickly as Aria’s heart had swelled, it shattered.
