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My father, my godfather, Lonan—all of them liars. Each has worn their own mask of charm and brilliance.

“How did my father die?” I ask again, dread sinking in my chest.

The shadows fall back over his eyes—that coldness that he can put on and cast off at will like a cloak.

“Lonan, how?” There’s strain in my voice now. The fragile thing that never beats inside my chest aches, buckling under the pressure of this moment like a wheel with broken spokes.

“Van Asten,” he says.

And it feels like the floor falls out from under me.

Chapter Forty-Four

Ihave endured so much in life. Too much. More than any girl should. It’s made me hardy, independent, self-assured. And it has also broken me.

He is Lord Van Asten to some. Headmaster to others. To me, he was godfather. Antoine. My father’s best friend and the final soft landing I had in life. The one person who I could go to and still feel safe, protected, like a child. Everywhere else, I am steel. Unbreakable.

He showed me love when no one else did. He made me feel safe.

I want to hurt Lonan. It’s irrational, a feeling born of the Dark. Because the words came from his mouth. Because I still want to deny them. He’s jealous. He’s lying. He’s a traitor.

But my logical, Light-driven mind knows that’s not true. It knows from the look on Lonan’s face, sincere and sad, that he is being honest. I want to smack that look off his face. Not because he deserves it, but because I cannot hurt my godfather and because I cannot bring my father back.

My father—a meiga more versed in war than most of the continent, a man so strong and so alive, who’d endured so much that it seemed impossible that he’d fallen. Of course he’d been betrayed. Of course his best friend killed him. Killed him and then went home to his child and through tears told her the story of his death. Carefully woven lies. False sympathy. An ugly imitation of love.

The ringing starts somewhere behind my eyes. It grows louder until it’s all I can hear. Lonan is saying something. I don’t hear him. I don’t want to hear him. Not after this.

Obfuscation.

Revelation.

How was I supposed to know this trial would be more treacherous than chaos? I didn’t need to be trapped in a coffin, watch my friends die or be turned to siphons, have my own blood filled with siphon’s poison.

The betrayal of someone I trusted—that’s all it takes to destroy me.

Lonan’s eyes are soft, pleading. But there’s a fire welling in my belly. I don’t want his softness.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should’ve stopped him.”

I laugh.

It’s cold and cruel, one that makes Lonan look at me with a mixture of horror and pity. I don’t want his pity. I don’t want anything from him that reminds me that he’s human, that I stupidly allowed him so close.

He takes a step back from me, closing his eyes and pushing a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Vesper. I should’ve told you years ago.”

“Yes, you should’ve.”

I don’t want to understand.

I’m no longer laughing. Now I’m watching Lonan with a clarity that I haven’t had before.

They call him the Great Nightmare. I never trusted how much he relished the Dark, how at home in it he seemed. He knew. He knew. And he didn’t tell me. He stayed loyal to the monster who killed my father.

I took him for granted. All the ire, all the fighting. I never realized it was because Lonan was in some sense my one safe place—no trying to please him, no pretending. I thought he was the one person I could be true with. I could spit in his face and unleash all my Darkness and he wouldn’t balk. But this is a betrayal. In a world built on secrets, he and I were alone together in our truth. So I thought.

Saints condemn me, tonight I let myself be fooled. That charm that I knew was false. That handsome face and smile and smooth words of praise and comfort. I’ve derided others for falling for it—our teachers, other students, my own godfather. But I let myself get too close. All of it pulled me in and convinced me to let my guard down. How could I be so stupid?

I might be sick.