“No,” she said. “I care for you just as you are, the way you are. The book is a kind of truth, but is not what we are. Cruel Prince James isn’t James. Matthew isn’t a collection of ice goblins in spats. And Princess Lucinda isn’t me. I made her far braver, more clever, more resourceful than I am.” She took a deep, terrifying breath. “Princess Lucinda would have told you she loved you, a long time before now.”

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t confuse what you feel with the stories you’re writing. You do not love me. It is not possible.”

Lucie wanted to stamp her foot on the floor but restrained herself. “I know what I feel,” she snapped. “You cannot dictate such things, nor tell me what is possible!”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “When I am with you, I imagine that my heart is beating, though it has not beaten for seven years. You give me so much, and I can give you nothing at all.” He caught up a handful of papers from her desk. “I told myself you felt nothing for me, any more than you would feel for—for a portrait, or a photograph of someone who had once lived and breathed. If I told myself lies, then this is my fault. All of it. And I must put an end to it.”

Lucie reached out, as if she could catch at his sleeve. “What if I commanded you?” she said, her voice harsh in her own ears. “To forget you’d ever read the book? What if—”

“No,” he said, and now he looked absolutely furious. “You must never command a ghost unless they ask you to do so!”

“But, Jesse—”

She could hardly see him clearly now: he had begun to fade, to blur around the edges. “I cannot, I will not stay,” he snapped. “Unless you command me, of course. Is that what you want? To force me to stay?”

Wordless, Lucie shook her head. And Jesse vanished, leaving the white pages of her book to flutter slowly to the floor.

James sat before the fire in his bedroom, letting the light from the flames play over his hands, creating pattern and shadow.

He could not sleep; Cordelia had begged off chess the moment they’d returned home, and indeed, she’d looked strained and exhausted. James felt bitterly angry with himself.

He had not broken his agreement with Cordelia—he had spoken to Grace briefly, and only about Amos Gladstone’s death. She had told him to be careful. All perfectly proper, but he knew he must have seemed stricken when Grace had walked into the room. Cordelia had been stunned. He must have looked awful; she was usually so cheerful and unflappable.