“Come in,” I said.

The door opened. Phelan stood on the threshold, hesitant until I motioned for him to step inside. He did, shutting the door behind him. His boots were scuffed from the nightmare, his trousers ripped at the knee. His cravat and jacket were abandoned. His shirt hung slightly open at the neck draws, and I remembered the scars on his chest.

“We need to talk,” he said.

I waited for him to speak and began to unwind my braid with my fingers, my hair coming loose in rich waves. He watched me, transfixed, until I asked, “What did you need to talk to me about?”

“This is Mazarine’s magic, isn’t it?”

I knew he spoke of my disguise, and I looked away from him, bracing myself for this conversation. One that had been brewing between us for well over a week now. I sealed the door and windows with a quick spell to hold our conversation private. “Yes.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“Why I donned a disguise and became your partner?” I walked to the small round table by my hearth, where a pitcher of water sat. I poured myself a glass but didn’t offer one to him. “I was angry. You and your brother arrived without warning and challenged my father and me for my home. You won it, fairly, and yet I couldn’t let it go. The way you both disgraced us. How we were now homeless.”

He sighed and dragged his hand through his hair. “Why did you come after me? What did you intend to do, Clem?”

I made myself take a long swallow of water, but I was trembling, torn between my desires. To be shrewd and continue withholding things, or to let the truth unfold. I set down the glass and drew my cloak tighter around me, as if it could protect me from the discomfort of both choices.

“Did you plan to kill me?” he asked.

“Honestly, Phelan! Do I look that merciless to you?”

He stared at me. “I don’t know what I see in you.”

“I wanted to disgrace you, as you had done to me,” I confessed, walking to him. “I wanted to hurt you and your family, to make you feel the things that you had inspired in me. I wanted you to be devastated. And I wanted to win my home back.”

He stiffened, as if my words had cut him. But he held my gaze, insistent. “Did you ever plan to reveal to me who you were? Or were you going to up and leave me without word, without a trace?”

“I wanted to tell you. Eventually.”

“To bask in your victory, I suppose.”

“Yes.” I sounded callous, and I watched Phelan flinch.

“So Anna was all an act?” he asked.