I never used to cry. Now, it seemed like the more I tried to stop myself, the more viciously it clawed its way out of me.

Vale, though, lingered for a long, awkward moment as I gathered the clothes our guide had brought. I peered over my shoulder. “If your goal is to make this as uncomfortable as possible,” I said, “you’ve achieved it.”

Desperation made for a terrible deal.

The corner of my mouth twitched. His brow flattened. “What’s that face for?” “Nothing. It’s just... a very optimistic thing for you to say.” He threw his hands up. “Well fuck, if we can’t be even a little optimistic, what are we doing any of this for?”

“I’m surprised it’s still here, and that you didn’t fly off to Sivrinaj with it. This was what you were looking for, wasn’t—” “You were fucking dying,” he snapped. “I had more important things to worry about than your father’s games.”

I’d had plenty of sex before. Some bad, some good, much of it ill-advised. But this didn’t feel like sex. It felt like a religious ritual—like finding faith.

“I have a blunt question for you,” I asked, and Septimus looked a little delighted. “I love blunt questions.”

“Hey, pretty girl, you here alone?” a young, copper-haired man said, sidling up to me, and I shot him a dagger stare that made him make a face and immediately turn away.

The love I felt now, for Raihn, was… terrifying in its ease. I was afraid that something would come to rip it away from me. I was afraid that I would destroy it myself, by not knowing how to feel something so right.