“Daisy,” said James, with a smile. It was a real smile, though she could not quite tell if he was happy or sad or something in between. “What are you thinking?”

One thing had not changed: her heart still beat too fast when she danced with James.

“I was thinking,” she said, “it must be strange to you, that Belial’s realm was destroyed.”

One dark eyebrow flicked upward, a flourish of ink across a page. “What do you mean?”

“It was a place only you could see,” she said. “That only you could go. Now it is gone. It is like an enemy that you have known a long time. Even if you hated it, it must be strange to think of never seeing it again.”

“No one else has understood that.” James was looking at her with a gentle, puzzling tenderness, the Mask entirely gone now. He drew her closer to him. “We must think of this as an adventure, Daisy.”

She could feel his heart beat against her own. “Think of what as an adventure?”

“Being married,” James said fiercely. “I know you gave up a great deal for me, and I never want you to regret it. We will live together as the best of friends. I will help you train for your parabatai ceremony. I will defend and support you, always. You need never be lonely. I will always be there.”

His lips brushed her cheek.

“Remember how well we did in the Whispering Room,” James whispered, and she shivered at the feeling of his warm breath against her skin. “We fooled them all.”

We fooled them. So it had been as she feared, despite what he had said—and perhaps believed—at the time: it had been real to her, but not to him. A strange and bitter pleasure.

“I suppose,” James said, “I am saying that I know this is an odd experience—but I hope you can be at least a little bit happy, Daisy.”

His hair was tumbling over his forehead. Cordelia recalled the thousand times she had wanted to push it back from his face. This time, she did, reaching up to brush it away from his eyes.

She smiled a smile as false as it was bright. “I am,” she said, “a little bit happy.”

The dimple flashed in his cheek. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said, and drew her closer for the next step in the dance.

She remembered the ball, when he had left her on the floor and walked to Grace. He would not do that now; he was too honorable. She had him, for this year—a year of bitter joy. She would have her father back as well. She would stay in London and be parabatai with Lucie. She had everything she had wanted, and yet none of it the way she had imagined.