Page 136 of Flames and Blood

“There’s something else.” I let go of his coat and step back, because I want to be standing on my own for this part. “I’m not the Heir anymore. I gave it up. The name, the succession, all of it, and I did it with my eyes open, because I couldn’t stay in a house where my mother would rather leave a murder buried than answer for it.”

His jaw sets. “You gave up your whole family.”

“Yes.”

“For this?”

I don’t think that’s what he wants to hear.

“For the truth,” I say. “Because of a mother who figured all this out for herself months ago and decided to leave it.” I don’t look away from him. “I didn’t do it for you, Gideon. I’d have walked away for the same reason if you’d never existed.”

It’s true. It isn’t the whole truth, and I think he knows it.

He doesn’t call me a liar. He looks at me, and the fight goes out of both of us at once. His thumb moves against my sleeve and stops. His eyes drop to my mouth and come back up. My whole body leans toward him before I catch it. I watch him do the same thing.

Neither of us closes the last foot.

He drove for five days and stood outside my door at two in the morning without opening it.

He still hasn’t told me why he came.

“Tell me what you found,” I say.

He does.

“I found the person who made the body they found on the mountain.”

“You did?”

“I sat in her front room for an hour, and she told me all of it.” He drags the heel of his hand across his eyes. “You already know most of it. The measurements. The ring. I’m not making you go through that twice.”

“Then tell me the part I don’t know.”

“The client,” he says. “She got a good look at him. She said he was tall. Had dark red hair, cut short. An easy laugh. Polite.”

I don’t say anything.

“A few days ago, he went back to her to find out how to stage a real accident.”

I sit down on the bed.

The room goes very quiet. Or I stop hearing anything except him.

“Tell me what it means.” I don’t need him to; I already know what it means. I want someone else to say it.

“He’s planning to do it properly this time, Kalli.” He crouches down in front of me so I don’t have to look up at him. “When you got back, he decided he couldn’t let you live.”

I look at my hands. They’re steady.

He knows. He already knows, but he’s easing me into it.

“While I was down in that room, a man came to see me,” he goes on. “He brought me a blanket I didn’t need and framed it as a kind gesture. He sat down and asked me what you remembered about the day you were taken, and who you’d told, and how much you knew. I told myself he was just a worried relative. I’ve had a lot of time since then to stop believing that.”

I hear him.

And while he’s still talking, I’m putting it against what I already know, and it fits.

“Kaevor has the same hair,” I say, because I have to say it. “The same build.”