I didn’t hate him as I had before. How could I after this harrowing night had bound us together, in fear and courage and wounds?

And while his face had been difficult to read in the past . . . I saw the lines in his brow fade the longer he regarded me, our breaths mingling. I saw the shock of hope, tender and fragile and surprising as a flower breaking winter ground, rise within him.

I was beginning to think he liked me—Anna, not Clem—more than he let on.

When I stood, he released me. I took my time putting his medicine box away and gathering his clothes off the blood-speckled rug, because he was intently watching me, and I needed him to close his eyes before I passed the mirror.

At last, his eyes drifted shut, and I hurried by the mirror and out the chamber, down the stairs to the library. It was dark and solemn as a tomb, the air thick with the musty fragrance of books and the loam of plants, and I took a moment to drop my guard. To gasp in relief and lower myself to my knees. To lie prostrate on the floor and sift through the events of that night—in the streets and in his bedroom.

But all too soon, I made myself rise and light a candle.

Every muscle in my body felt sore and tense, and I kneaded a knot in my shoulder as I approached the plant table. I gathered what I needed, a recipe that was similar to making a remedy but without the fuss of draining plant pulp. I added a hearty dose of fiddle’s spark, an herb that brought on swift, deep slumber. There was no chance of Phelan drinking this and not succumbing to sleep within a few moments.

I carried the tonic back up the stairs, pausing in the middle of the staircase to glance behind me at the front door, to the bronze handle that winked in the dim light. I wondered if the knight still stood on the threshold, waiting for me to answer the challenge he posed, but I forced myself to continue my ascent.

Phelan was just as I’d left him, his eyes closed until he heard me step into the room.

I hastened past the mirror and set the cup of tonic on his bedside table. I realized I couldn’t linger beside him, not with the glaring reflection of my secret, and I awkwardly stepped away, far from his and the mirror’s reach.

“Thank you,” Phelan said, but I detected a hint of mockery in his tone as he struggled to sit upright on his own.

I pretended to be distracted by the piles of books he had on the floor, kneeling to study their titles, to touch their worn covers.

“What did you put in this, Anna?” he asked after a moment, stifling a cough.