Yet he had given her this. Vulnerability. A good Danubian soldier would have exploited it, dissected it. But here she was, hopelessly enraptured by him. Maybe she was a little lonely, too.

“To be honest, you’re not very scary,” she said. “You’re just kind of sad.”

Reality crashed back onto her. Soon enough, she wouldn’t be lonely anymore—because she’d betray his trust and make a prisoner of him. She couldn’t feel sorry for him—couldn’t feel anything for him. Would her heart always sabotage her? Would she always misplace her pity?

She had to kill her compassion before it became something far more problematic.

“And you’re powerless. You’re only acting this way because you need me. But I know what I saw in the war. They say you’re the perfect soldier. That you feel nothing at all. That you’re not even human.” She lowered her eyes to avoid watching his confusion solidify into hurt. “I know that’s all true.”

“So it is.” His voice was completely toneless when he said, “I’d like to go back upstairs now.”

Shame burned in her cheeks, unbidden and fierce. “Then get up, Cavendish.”

He did not speak to her the entire way back to his room, and as soon as she helped him into bed, he closed his eyes. It was as good as a door slammed in her face. As much as it stung, it was for the best to wedge distance between them.

Wren considered the philosophy book on his nightstand. Even if she’d effectively ruined any chance of getting him to be vulnerable again, curiosity about him burned strong. What was it that Hal Cavendish thought about during his lonely, torturous days? She pocketed it as she went.

In her room, she propped her feet up on her desk and flipped it open to where he’d ribbon-marked it. The title of the essay was “On Forgiveness.”

Wren had never felt so wretched in her life.

“Nothing.”

Wren tossed The Natural History of the Cernosian Highlands across the room. It struck the floor at the foot of her bed with a dull thud. Hannah startled, glancing with mild concern over her shoulder.

“I don’t think throwing the book will make it tell you anything,” she said, turning back to her work. She held a beaker full of golden liquid—another dose of Hal’s blood fortifier—in her gloved hands, her hair piled high atop her head.

Wren pulled her hands through her hair. She needed patience, fortitude, calm. But how could she be unemotional when she was completely out of options? “I’m a failure.”

“You’re not a failure.” Hannah poured off the medication into a smaller glass jar. As candlelight refracted through the glass, it burned like liquid amber.

“I am. If I can’t do this one simple thing—”