I’m the problem.Jameson let himself think the words. Avery was his heart and his soul and the very best parts of what he’d managed to become these past few years, and then, without warning, she was gone.I’m a ticking time bomb, and I don’t know how to be anything else without you, Heiress.
Jameson wasn’t even sure he knew how to keepbreathingwithout her.
The trick, he could hear Toby saying,is to imagine her glaring at you and putting out the fuse.Even just picturing Avery in his mind nearly took Jameson to his knees, but he did it.
You deserve better from me than this.
Suddenly, Libby was there, taking Jameson’s head in her hands, and even though Avery and her sister had never been much alike, being held by Libby was the closest Jameson had come in days to feeling Avery’s presence.
Closer than any dream. Closer than any imagining.
“Breathe,” Libby told him. Jameson’s neck bowed until his forehead was touching hers, and Libby just stood there, holding him, letting himbreakwhen he couldn’t afford to—when he had to keep going. “Breathe for me, Jameson.”
Jameson breathed.
“We’ve got you, Jamie.” Nash slid in behind Libby. “And we’ve got this. We’re going to find our girl.”
“To that end…” Grayson wrapped one arm around Libby and one around Jameson. “We have a lot to catch you up on. You can do the same for us, but first, you’re going tofeelevery single thing you’ve been fighting. Every fear. Every bit of agony or guilt. You’re going to let it come, because if you don’t, Jameson, you willshatterfrom the strain of holding it back.”
“Emotions are for feeling, not for angrily suppressing,” Xander offered solemnly. “A very important rule, right afterno killing Grayson.”
Jameson let out a dry, strangled little laugh and realized he was crying, too. Tears streamed down his face—and not justhis.
Grayson.
Grayson doesn’t cry.Jameson looked toward Lyra. Itstillhurt. Seeing Lyra’s steadiness, seeing the change in his brother and knowing that Avery wasn’t here to see it when she and Jameson hadchortledabout throwing Grayson into the Grandest Game, aboutlocking him in a roomwith Lyra.
Jameson let it hurt. He let itallhurt. And then he felt something—movement from Libby’s stomach. Shocked into taking a deeper breath than he’d managed since before Prague, Jameson stared at Nash’s wife. “Was that…?”
“Thing Two,” Libby replied matter-of-factly. “She’s the twin with attitude.”
Our niece, Jameson thought.Yours and mine, Heiress.And Avery would be there to meet her, to meet them both.
“Okay, Thing Two.” Jameson’s voice came out raspy and thin. “Let’s do this.” He looked at Grayson, then at Lyra. “Who’s ready for a game of Show and Tell?”
Chapter 59
ROHAN
The kitten stared at Rohan, the way she’dbeenstaring at him for the better part of a day—though to be fair, she’d also bitten him. Twice. And Rohan hadn’t even managed to dump her in a gutter. Try as he might, he couldn’t flip the switch. He’d always been able to, since the day he’d come to the Devil’s Mercy. Since the day he’d—
“You’re still here.” Savannah entered the plane the way the duchess and the Proprietor had: through the cockpit. “I don’t know whether that’s more convenient or pathetic.”
You came back.It had been seventeen hours since Rohan had zipped up Savannah’s smoky-gray ballgown and set her loose on the Mercy. Ten hours since Zella had informed Rohan that she’d told Savannah exactly what it meant to become the Proprietor. Brady had stalked off shortly thereafter, and Rohan had let him.
Rohan had let Brady go, andhehad stayed right where he was, trying and failing to flip the switch.You came back.
“Quit looking at me like that.” Savannah made no move to come any closer to him.
“Like what?”
“Like I will ever tolerate you calling meloveagain.” Savannah’s voice was nothing but control. “Like I will ever touch you or let you touch me again. Like I’m some kind of angel and not a person who will gladly rip your throat out if you so much as saya wordto me right now—or ever again.”
Savannah strode toward Rohan, a true winter girl with ice in her veins. She threw something down on the table in front of him.
You’re here, Rohan thought, but he heeded her warning and did not say the words out loud.
“I came back,” Savannah informed him, “forthe cat.” She looked down at him. “And to give you this.” She nodded to the bag she’d just thrown on the table. From within it, Rohan withdrew the gray ballgown, which she’d shredded, and four other objects, one after another:
