“Jane, can you not see what this could mean?” he said, his hands lifting to cradle my neck. “This could be a step forward for Mountheim. For the country. Think of the message a hybrid-born Lady would send. Of peace. Of equality.”
Warmth drained from my face. My hands lifted to grip his forearms. “What?”
“I have been thinking about this since I learned you are partly mageborn. You would be the first hybrid Lady in…centuries, probably. You could leave a mark on our history. After the war, the order of things kept our people apart to prevent violence, but it solved nothing. The hatred and prejudice are still here. A hybrid-born Lady could help change that. You could be exactly what we need.”
He waited, but my mind had gone utterly blank.
“What I mean is, what you see as a flaw could change us for the better.”
I blinked, stunned by the sheer audacity of the idea, by how fast he had elevated the stakes from unlikely to ludicrous in the span of a breath.
“My Gods, you are insane.” A laugh tore out of me, my disbelief dissolving into exhaustion.
Reagan fixed me with a quizzical look.
“I don’t want to be a symbol. I might as well paint a target on my back. On Joy’s back.” I drew a steadying breath. “I want to think about this. I cannot decide it lightly. And you cannot hand me this role without proof that I can wield as the rest of you do.”
“You aren’t wielding yet,” he said. “That will take time and practice. But you will. I’m not asking that you become a symbol. That was too soon. I’m asking you to be Lady. My Lady.”
His shirt bunched beneath my fingers as I inhaled some of that unshakable certainty.
Reagan’s eyes dropped to my mouth.
Perhaps this was his strongest argument. Because despite all logic and doubt, I wanted him. Wanted him enough to heed the warnings in my head and still just focus on how I felt with him. How I wanted to feel that same way again and for as long as I could. Not a single part of me wanted to take the easier path.
“Alright,” I murmured.
He smiled, crooked and infuriatingly attractive, his shoulders loosening in visible relief. “Thank the Grimoire.”
“I will need to practise,” I corrected. “And if we have proof, then yes.”
His eyes were half lidded now, his mouth set with intent. “Deal.”
Chapter 11
Jane
Joy perched on the cushioned chair, her arms locked tight around her folded legs, her gaze fixed on the far corner of the infirmary.
Our hope had thinned into a persistent ache, wearing itself down with every day Father didn’t wake. Still, we came. We waited for Hildegard with an expectation that was beginning to feel less like optimism and more like hoping for a miracle.
I picked absently at my nails as the silence stretched. My attention drifted to the far end of the infirmary, where two healers worked over a trio of battle mages. The blinds stood open, sunlight spilling across their beds. One of the patients laughed as a healer pressed a syringe into his arm. I couldn’t see the wound from here.
“Do you still have enough of your pills?” I asked quietly.
Joy nodded once, her gaze never leaving the corner she had chosen.
“For how long?”
A pause. “Four more days.”
“That’s not much,” I said, keeping my voice even. “We should show Hildegard the bottle. Ask how we can get more.”
She always carried enough of her pills to last until the pharmacies in Erhfurt restocked. She planned for that.
The infirmary doors swung open, and Hildegard strode in. “You’re early,” she said, glancing between us.
“Anything?” I asked, rising from the couch to meet her at my father’s bedside.
