MAX
Blood whooshes at my temples. “What?”
“I don’t know what enchantment or curse wiped your memories and made you permanently invisible, but you’re not dead,” she repeats impatiently, addressing him directly.
With a huff, she marches over to him and smacks his head. “Here. Not dead.”
E bites back a wince. “Ow. You’re not fucking around, are you?”
Iris rests her hand on her hips. “Well, I’m a little disappointed in the turn our reunion has taken. I imagined something different.”
“Are you— Are we?” he blurts out. “Aren’t I supposed to be married to someone named Willow?”
Her eyes fly to the sky, and she scoffs, the mention of the name bringing back a flash of disgust on her face. “Technically, yes.”
“What do you mean,technically?” I ask.
Iris acts as though I don’t exist. “You married Willow out of duty, but you never lovedher,” she says.
The sentence is arranged in a way that implies he loved someone else instead, but she doesn’t elaborate.
“Well…” she says, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from her skirts, “This is a mess. Your father will be pissed.”
I press my lips together.
If we want to petition Ezra’s father to save my brother from the Reds, antagonizing the King of Light before he even arrives would be a catastrophically bad start.
A servant dressed in white cotton robes appears from the same direction Iris came and clears his throat. “Um. Um. Excuse me, Your Majesty. But you’re not supposed to be outside alone before sundown.”
Majesty?
Iris huffs as though she isn't embarrassed by the reminder, merely inconvenienced. “Give me a minute. I'll ask the servants to stretch dinner.”
She glides off in a whisper of silk and poise, her pale gown clinging to all the right places, the kind of effortless elegance that makes my dirty, rain-soaked clothes feel even more pathetic.
E leans closer, and my heart beats hard in my chest.
“Say something, please,” E whispers.
I turn toward the sound of his voice. “What else is there to say?”
“That woman…” His voice catches, full of guilt and cracking over something more bitter. “Max, I don’t— I don’t remember her. I don’t remember any of this.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s a lie.”
“Whoever Ezra was…” He swallows. “He’s not me.”
“But he is. I mean—you are.”
The distinction feels impossible to explain, especially when I barely understand it myself.
“I love you.”
“That’s beside the point.” I keep my voice cold, but inside, I’m burning.
My heart pounds hard and uneven in my chest.
The reveal of his true identity doesn’t suddenly erase my love for him. That’s the humiliating part. Even now, with another woman’s magic steeped into him like perfume we can’t scrub away, with questions I don’t want answered clawing at my insides, I still love him.
