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I thought of Edith hiding my blood, my family and the court under my feet. She’d loved me. She’d also left me walking blind into the danger she’d spent my whole life avoiding. Love could explain a secret and still fail the person it was meant to protect.

“I understand why you waited with Cecily,” I said. “That’s the part I hate most. I know how grief can make one more day feel reasonable. I know how love can make secrecy feel like protection.”

Stellan’s eyes stayed on mine. “Understanding it doesn’t make it yours to forgive.”

“No. But it means I could make the same mistake if I start believing my reasons matter more than everyone else’s right to know.”

The Crown waited somewhere inside Harrowmere. Adrian wanted it on my head because he believed power would finish what fear began. Refusing it now didn’t guarantee I would never touch it. A desperate choice had destroyed this court once already.

“If I ever wear the Crown, I’m not alone with it,” I said. “Lenora is present. Harrowmere records every order. If I ask you to conceal something I’ve commanded, you tell the witnesses.”

“I will.”

“If I start closing gates because disagreement feels like betrayal, you say it where other people can hear.”

“You may hate me for it.”

“Then let me hate you alive and informed.”

His breath left him slowly. “I can do that.”

“And you don’t obey a dangerous order just because it came from me.”

“If the Crown uses your voice, choice may not be available to me.”

“Then fight it long enough for someone else to act.”

“That I can promise.”

I pressed my palm into the mattress. The bond pulled towards him, carrying the steady ache of his restraint and the want neither of us had lost. Keeping the boundary didn’t require pretending I felt nothing. It required letting what I felt exist without allowing it to make the decision.

“I still want you,” I said.

His expression didn’t soften into victory. “I still want you.”

“Wanting you isn’t forgiveness.”

“No.”

“And distance isn’t abandonment.”

For the first time since he’d begun the confession, his control slipped. His fingers curled against his palms before he opened them again. “All right.”

I reached across the space and touched the back of his hand with two fingers. The contact was brief and entirely mine. Warmth moved through the bond, quiet rather than consuming.

“We start with the truth,” I said. “Repair comes after.”

“However long it takes.”

There were more questions between us than I could ask in one night. For once, I knew he wouldn’t use the silence between them as permission to hide.

I wasn’t ready to ask every question about Cecily, but he wasn’t spared them. I was choosing when I could hear the answers without using his body to silence my anger.

“I meant what I said,” I told him. “I’m not putting you in a position where you have to choose whether to kill me.”

“Then we remove Adrian and destroy the Crown.”

“Simple.”