Seeing him this close caused her heart to twist, half of her heart yearning to be even closer while the other half wanted to rip itself free and stab into him. Because he’d been the one to stop her from finishing what she’d needed to finish. She both hated him and loved him for what he’d done, simultaneously. It was an emotional contradiction she didn’t think she’d ever be able to wrap her head around.

“Why?” was all she knew how to ask.

He turned toward her, his eye widening. “You’re awake,” he said. “Thank the gods. How do you feel?”

“Like someone who’s been betrayed…again. Now tell me why,” she demanded through her teeth. Anger was all she knew how to feel right now. “Why did you stop me?”

“I can explain.”

She shook her head, which suddenly felt remarkably clear. “When someone you want—no, need, desperately—to trust lies to you, it’s like being stabbed in the chest with a knife, and then that blade is twisted and pushed deeper, shredding parts of your very soul you didn’t even know existed.”

“You lied to me too.”

“It’s not the same and you know it. We were on equal footing when we were strangers happening upon each other during a chance meeting in the woods. But the moment you realized we shared a past, a terrifically tragic past that led us together at this very intersection in time, you gained an advantage, one you held onto while playing me for a fool.”

“You’re no one’s fool, Bryony. And, for what it’s worth, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Intentions are worth nothing without follow through. If you didn’t want to hurt me, then you should’ve told me the truth or left like you’d planned to that night.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Another lie. Shocking.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Then whoever trained you to be an assassin is a terrible master. An assassin should always keep their enemies closer than their most trusted allies.”

“I’ve never thought of you as my enemy.”

“So that never entered your mind?”

Ludo scratched under his eye patch, as though there was an itch on that scarred flesh that he could never quite eradicate. “I didn’t say that. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t have had more than one reason.”

“What other reason could there be? To slit my throat in the dark? If so, you are a poor assassin indeed as my throat is unmarked.”

“I would never kill you.”

“But you would kill my father while I watched.”

“I…I had to. Or at least I thought I did.”

“And yet once you realized our motives were aligned you refused to offer the killing stroke. Are you determined to make me hate you?”