I’m struck again by how straightforward and kind she is. Silly girl, I think. Don’t be sorry. You’re doing exactly what I need you to do.

I reach up and clasp her small hand in mine over the carriage windowsill and grin wider. “Can I let you in on a secret?” I ask. She nods, wide-eyed. “I’ll be gone soon. The court is no place for me, I’ve decided.”

Her eyes get even larger, and I fight back the hot haze behind my own that threatens tears. She can’t see me cry, see me show any emotion other than glibness. I must look sincere, deathly so. The words come easily, even if my expression doesn’t.

“He can be very prickly,” I say. “And stubborn. And he’s convinced—” I laugh. “He’s convinced he’s the only one who can save anyone. Maybe that’s why we got along at all in the first place—him with his savior complex and me with my martyr complex.”

“Lady Zera—” Tarroux starts gently, but I cut her off.

“Speak your mind whenever you can—he hates platitudes most of all. Don’t try to get him to drink. Oh, and he likes the city much more than he likes the palace.”

My hands start to shake as everything runs through my mind—every time I’ve seen him, touched him, laughed with him. Only two weeks. It was only two weeks, so I really have no right to be this sad. Two weeks is nothing. A flimsy infatuation—lust and lust only. Two weeks means nothing.

I let Tarroux’s hand go so as not to betray myself, my words spilling out faster.

“Please, Lady Tarroux. When you come back to Vetris, please watch over him. Protect your prince as I cannot anymore.”

…

Lady Tarroux never gets to answer me. Her caravan begins to move again, pulling her toward South Gate. I wave and wave, until her carriage is nothing more than a golden dot on the horizon. Then I drag myself back to Varia’s apartments at a slow crawl. I should be happy—what I wanted has coalesced. I’ve pushed Tarroux toward Lucien, and myself away.

She’s innocent. She’s free of blood. She’s human.

I coax my miserable self into Varia’s sitting room, surprised to find her already there. At this time of night she’d usually be out to dinner at Fione’s estate. But she sits on an ironwood couch in a grand feathered bathrobe, staring into a glass not of the imported brandy from Avel that’s so popular among the Vetrisian nobles but some clearer liquid. It’s strange, to see someone so in control relaxing for once.

She looks up with subdued eyes as I walk in and sees me staring at her cup. She waves it at me with a flourish. “Can’t stand the Avellish stuff.”