And then the Alder I’ve always known—calculating, cold, manipulative. The man who crushed my trust, who ruined my life like it was nothing.
Not two sides of the same coin.
Two different coins altogether.
My chest tightens. The world tilts. I grip the dock’s wooden railing as the truth crashes over me.
This kingdom has been full of faces I recognize but don’t truly know. Mackenzie’s face worn by a queen who’s nothing like her. Sylvie, her red hair and freckles identical to Elsie’s. This world is a mirror, a parallel universe full of people I’ve seen before, echoes of lives from my world.
And now, standing in front of me, is the cruelest reflection of all.
I shake my head again, harder this time. My breath whooshes from my lungs like I’ve been hit, and my fingers ache from gripping the railing so tightly.
“Gemma…” he says softly.
“How?” I manage to say, my voice a dry rasp in my throat. “How is this possible? How did I not see it?Howdo you know my name?”
He sets down the knife and the half-eaten pear and steps off the boat onto the dock.
I want to run. I want to scream. But my mind won’t send the commands to my limbs. It’s spinning too fast, unraveling everything I thought I knew.
“I’ve been watching you,” he says gently. “Since the forest. Since the first morning you arrived and you went in my carriage, with my guards, with a man who looked exactly like me. I thought…I thought it would be easier to—”
“Easier?” I snap, voice trembling with fury and something rawer, something closer to grief. “It doesn’t seem to matter how many versions of you there are. You’re all liars.”
Tears sting the corners of my eyes, but I blink them away. I won’t cry. Not for any version of him.
His gaze doesn’t falter, but it shifts—turns sorrowful, maybe. Or is maybe tinged with shame. I don’t care.
The truth is here now, staring back at me. Two men. Two versions. Two pieces of a puzzle I didn’t know I was trying to solve.
“You’re the Lord Lockhart everyone keeps talking about. The Lord Lockhart everyone assumes Alder is.”
He nods. “I am.”
“Of course you are,” I whisper.
“LordAldericLockhart.” His name is a falling star, burning through the dark. “Former ruler of the Kingdom of Pentacles. Invited to Cups to discuss trade alliances and…” He shakes his head, his gaze dropping to his feet. “None of that matters anymore.”
“You’re the one I saw in the forest. You were nakedand—” I gasp. “The henhouse. And this boat. The island. The machine after that woman—after she—”
“You were hurt,” he says quickly, stepping forward. “I couldn’t leave you—”
“So you whisked me away?” I spit. “Kissed me? Tucked me into bed after I passed out like some twisted fairy tale?”
“No, I found—”
“Shut up.” I drag my hands through my wet hair, every inch of my skin buzzing with betrayal. “I knew it. I knew it in the forest after I first woke up here. You were different. Warmer. Softer. Too good to be true.”
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes, but it does nothing to quiet the tempest inside me.
“I ignored it. I told myself I was being paranoid. That it was just trauma, stress, displacement—whatever the fuck people like to call it when a woman’s gut screams and she chooses not to listen.”
My breath hitches. “So I did what I always do. I stuffed it down. I followed Alder. I tried to be reasonable.”
I look up at him. Moonlight spills over his body, tracing every edge in soft silver. He looks like a fallen angel. And it makes me want to scream.
“All those moments I thought we were building something…” My voice fractures, fragile and splintering. “Do you have any idea how much that hurts? Did you even think about me at all?”
