“You’d let her die.” It was disbelief, teetering on astonishment. Then his lips peeled back in a snarl. “You will do it.” He spat with every word. “Do you think there’s nothing left for me to take? Shall we pay a visit to the old woman in the abbey?”

Wren reached out with her free hand, fumbling over the instruments. The scalpel nicked her hand, drawing a hiss from her, but she seized it and drove it into the back of his arm. He tore himself away from her grasp with a guttural howl, clutching at his arm to staunch the blood spurting freely from the wound.

“Kill the girl, Isabel.” The veins on Lowry’s neck bulged. “Now!”

Isabel crouched beside Una’s heaving body, her skirts puddling in her blood. “Do not give orders to me.”

Lowry laughed—actually laughed. It was a raw, unhinged sound, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I swear, you will reel from how quickly I withdraw Cernos’s support from your war.”

Isabel hesitated.

Una was still breathing. But so slowly, interrupted by air-hungry gasps. Her skin was a pallid, waxy blue. Death lurked over her now, one skeletal claw already dug into her heart. They didn’t have time for hesitation.

“Isabel, please. I know you’re hurting.” Wren wobbled over the words. To show kindness to the woman who’d made her so miserable—it was maybe the hardest thing she’d ever done. “I know you want to make our family proud. I know you want to finish what they started. But you’re not like them. We don’t have to continue the things we’ve inherited. We can be better—”

Isabel’s head snapped up. “You know nothing of loyalty or duty. I was entrusted this nation by my mother and her mother before her. It was given to me by the Goddess, and I will not see it ruined. I will not abandon their legacy.”

“You haven’t,” Wren pleaded. “I know how awful it is when it feels like everyone rejected you. When you’ve tried your best, and it’s not enough.”

Isabel said nothing. Lowry, for the first time, stilled.

“But you locked yourself away. You’ve pushed away everyone.” Wren reached out. “But you don’t have to be alone.”

“I am alone.” Isabel’s voice cracked. “I’m the Paper Queen. Who would love her?”

“I would have loved you, if you let me!” Wren choked back a sob. “I wanted to—so badly. I wanted you to love me, too. After you sent me away, I never stopped hoping you would come for me. And after I got out, I never stopped hoping you would change your mind about me. I never stopped trying to impress you.”

The ferocity in Isabel’s glare faded.