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“When something happens, you are the person I want to tell.”

He took another step.

“When Adrien smiles, I want you there to see it.”

The hot press of tears rose in my throat when he came to a stop directly in front of me.

“And when you aren’t beside me,” he said. “I am looking for you.”

His attention dropped to the dark stone clenched inside my fist, and some of his certainty faltered.

“Perhaps Maris brought you to me, or perhaps she had nothing to do with it. Either way, I don’t care,” he admitted. “I don’t know whether any of this makes sense to you because it barely makes sense to me.”

He reached for my hand but stopped before touching it.

“But Renaud spoke about you as though you were some indulgence he could grant me, and you are not. You are—” He broke off, releasing another unsteady breath. “You are the woman I love. Apparently. Inconveniently. Quite a lot, in fact.” His gaze searched mine. “And now I have said it, twice, while you have said nothing, which is… just wonderful.”

My eyes burned. I swallowed, but the sob remained lodged in my throat. Damn him for saying this now. Damn him for making it sound so simple.

“Do you know what people would say if they knew? They would say the Duke of Valemer pulled a witch out of the harbor and lost whatever judgment he had left.” I forced myself to hold his gaze. “And when Renaud loses the vote you’re about to cost him, my name will be mentioned. My real name.”

I turned around, unable to face him with the tears that were streaming down my cheeks. I wiped them away with the back of my hand. Yves wrapped his arms around my waist. I let him hold me for a painful second before shrugging him off.

“Bastien can clear your name. You are a hero⁠—”

“Do not use that word.” My stomach gave a sickening lurch. “Yes, I did the right thing. Knowing that is the only way I sleep at night. But being right didn’t save a single one of them.”

I normally kept these memories drowned in liquor, and confronting them sober meant I had no way to stop the images from flashing behind my eyes.

The blood. The bodies. Then the pyre.

“But it saved my brother. It saved Bastien.”

“And instead of taking my mother as a prisoner, he set her on fire.”

I told myself I carried her ashes in case I needed to bind her ghost, but I could have kept them in my traveling bag. I hated what she had done. I still hadn’t been able to leave what remained of her behind.

Yves went to say something, but I held up a hand. I couldn’t bear to continue talking about that night.

“When they learn who I am,” I said through a fresh wave of nausea, “they will call me a traitor.”

I set the bloodstone back on his desk. The clack it made against the wood was obscenely loud.

“Put it back on.”

“Cora—”

“Put it on, Yves.” I turned around so he would know I meant it, and immediately regretted it. “If your court sees you without it, the Duke of Rochefort will have something to say.”

Then I reached for the one thing I could be to Yves without destroying him: his blood nanny.

“Adrien’s rooms need stronger wards,” I said. “I don’t care if Severin has doubled the watch. Men can be bribed.” I turned away, toward the door. “I’m going to begin drawing them. I’m sure Adrien will have a thousand questions about the magick. Afterward, I’ll start his lessons while you take your meetings.”

I reached the door and paused. If I looked back, I would say it. I would tell him his confession hadn’t frightened me because I felt nothing, but because I felt everything.

“Wait,” he said.

My hand tightened around the handle.