“No, Your Highness,” I say. “White mercury simply weakens all magic in the body of the afflicted. The only magic in a Heartless is the connection between them and their witch. The white mercury weakens it. It doesn’t sever it. Severing isn’t possible, unless—”

“Unless the witch shatters the Heartless’s heart themselves, yes,” Lucien finishes for me. “I know that part.”

I feel one of my brows raise. Does he? Where would he have learned that? Certainly not from any of the books in the palace library, or, dare I say, any book in Cavanos. It’s not exactly common knowledge, but neither is it a secret. Someone could’ve told him, I suppose. Someone with knowledge of how witches work.

He picks up a parchment, inspecting the blueprints there. “And a weakened connection between a witch and a Heartless lets the hunger inside you roam free. You can use that to disobey a witch’s command. Is that correct?”

My head snaps up, my eyes roaming over his languid posture as he reads the parchment in his hands. He knows much more than I ever thought possible. Has he read all this? No—there’s no way the things Reginall talked to me about, the things only he and I and the dead Weeping know, were ever written down. And even if they were, they were surely burned—if not by the witches who hate Weeping then by the humans who hate witches.

Lucien sees the naked shock on my face and laughs softly. “Ironically, the more we tried to develop white mercury weapons and use them in the war, the more we freed the Heartless. An unintended side effect but not an unwelcome one. Fewer Heartless following their witches’ commands means less trouble for the human soldiers on the field.”

He puts the parchment down and approaches me, so close I can see the streaks of brown in his dark eyes. He leans casually on the back of a velvet-trimmed couch.

“But you—” He swallows, strong throat bobbing. “That night in the clearing. The monster in you took over and killed those men. But it wasn’t just the monster, was it? Your eyes…they were still yours.”

My blood is slush, icy cold and red hot all at once and thrumming beneath my skin. He reaches one arm out and I stay still, waiting. Watching. Not daring to breathe. His fingertips graze my cheek, and my body clamors for more, honing in on the feel of his skin with a magnetic frenzy. I watch the prince’s eyes change when he touches me—his patient gaze turning shadowed, turning bitter. It’s just for a moment, and then he reverts to normal.

“Weeping,” he says, breaking the silence. The word jerks me away from his touch instantly. How did he—? “What you did in the clearing was called Weeping.”