Weysh’s heart sank. “I’m sorry, Maman.” His mouth twisted like he’d bitten into something sour. Every time she looked at him she saw the man who had kept her hostage. Every time Montpierre looked at him he saw his failure as a provider, the lengths to which he had driven the love of his life.

“Oh, lovely, no,” she soothed. “It was my mistake. I was young and I believed—” She sighed. “My grandmother who raised me was never warm or kind, but she did drive home one piece of wisdom: a woman’s beauty is her power. Again and again, as she critiqued my posture, my complexion, my hair, and my smile. ‘A woman’s beauty is her power.’”

“Do I look like him?”

“There is a resemblance,” his mother said truthfully.

“En? Even with my hair so long?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“The picture you showed me.” As a child of about six, Weysh had no real understanding of the nature of his parentage. He only knew Montpierre wasn’t his father. He had begged and pleaded for close to a year before his mother finally relented and showed him a portrait of Guste Pain in the newspaper. In hindsight, that must have been an article about him being disgraced and disowned by his family—for a dragon, a sacred warrior of Byen, to commit any sort of crime was a menacing scare to polite society, much less something as terrible as adultery or rape.

The man she’d shown him looked severe, with an aristocratic nose, a sharp and angular face, and Weysh’s violet eyes. He’d also worn his purple hair cut quite close to his head.

“His hair was very short,” said Weysh, as if that explained everything. His mother got up from her chair and came over to him. She placed a delicate hand on his cheek, and smiled.

“Oh, Weysh,” she said softly. “I’m your maman, lovely, and I can see what you’re thinking. I’m glad you were born, and not merely because your birth forced Guste Pain into the light. You’ve made your mistakes,” she said, stroking her thumb along the side of his face. “As have we all. I regret deeply my decision to succumb to Guste Pain, but I do not regret you, my heart. You are not Guste. You’re simply Weysh. My Weysh.”

Relief spread through him like warm brandy at that, melting something icy and hard in the pit of his stomach that he hadn’t even realized was there. He stood and enveloped her in a squeezing hug.

“I love you, Maman, always.”

“And I you, lovely.” She didn’t attempt to pull away, but Weysh noticed her voice sounded a bit strained, so he let her go. She took his hands.