Edward’s second eyebrow joined the first. “Now you’re just being silly.” Unless… No, it couldn’t be, he thought, banishing the very notion. Because it was impossible. Impossible. It had been a dream. Nothing more than a dream.

“I’m not. We searched the entirety of the palace thrice a day for you, until…”

“Until what?”

“Oh gods, you don’t know. How could you not know? Half the world probably knows by now. Where in the names of the Five have you been?”

Edward’s anger, which he could usually hold in check for longer than most, rose to the surface. “Because of our long history, I’ve been lenient. But your failure to appropriately address me is becoming irksome.”

“Irksome? Your Highness, what has been irksome is you going missing for weeks only to reappear in your bed as though you’ve been here the whole time!”

The man’s volume alone gave Edward pause. Mister Finch never raised his voice. Not even when the situation reasonably called for it. Never. “I—I don’t understand,” he said, dropping his book to his lap and not caring that it slammed shut, losing both his page and his place. His hands rose to the sides of his head as though to try to hold something inside it. Even as his eyes closed, images assaulted him. Images from something that could be a dream or a nightmare, or perhaps something in between. “It wasn’t real. None of it was real,” he murmured.

“What wasn’t real, Edward?” Mister Finch asked, footsteps revealing his approach. The bed shifted as the man’s weight settled onto it. Which normally would’ve been completely inappropriate. “What happened to you? There’s dirt beneath your fingernails. And is that…is that blood?”

Edward’s eyes flashed open, landing on his nails, which were grimy and longer than they were supposed to be. Something rust-colored limned each of them. “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” he said.

The man who’d been demanding answers a moment ago visibly softened, taking one of Edward’s hands. “I know, son, but it’s going to be alright. I will be here with you every step of the way. We will figure this out together. But we need to act fast, before it’s too late. Already your great uncle sits the throne, and the longer he fills your mother’s seat, the more difficult it will be to toss him out of it.”

His head was still spinning with a kaleidoscope of shadowy images that suddenly felt less surreal than when he’d first awoken and more like memories. His memories. Of things he’d done. Of people he’d hurt. Killed. Of a name he’d called himself, a name passed down to him by another, his predecessor.

Korsiris.

“No,” he said. “No.”