I feel his eyes on my skin a second before he drops down in front of me, light like a cat. I realize then that he’s no longer hiding his true appearance. His eyes glitter, not ruby like Valec’s, but some color in between what I knew and what he’s become. The veins on his hands have disappeared.

I look around for a place to sit. A fallen log lies half-covered with moss behind me, and only a little damp. It’ll do. I sit down, pulling my hoodie sleeves over my hands.

He stands before me, face resolute.

“I should never have mesmered you, and I apologize,” he says. “I violated your trust. And our friendship.”

I stare up at him for a long moment, try to see through the shield of formality to the person beneath. But all I can see are those times when he’d drawn me in only to lie. It makes me angry all over again. “Why?”

“May I…?” He gestures to the log.

The knot in my stomach pulls tight. “Yeah.”

“To explain, I think I need to start at the beginning.” He settles beside me on the log, hands stuffed in his pockets.

He releases a long breath, head tipping up to the sky. “It would be easy to claim that my descent began when Nicholas was taken. But I don’t think that is true. I think it started much earlier.”

I put two and two together. “When you tried to kill me?”

He nods slowly. “Oaths are sealed through personal belief and intention. Belief is why Lord Davis could do all the evil he did and not be burned by his own Oaths; he believed what he did was right. I believed I was doing my job well when you first arrived on campus. That going after you was the right thing to do.”

“I’m not excusing you,” I say. “But back then, you were doing your duty. What you thought was right based on what you knew. I didn’t know what I was either.”

He laughs, but it’s a hollow, cracking sound in his chest. “It is not my duty to be cruel.”