“No, I...” I shook my head slowly, worrying at my lower lip. “I’ll think about it. I will. But I’ll need time before I make a decision. Does it truly matter to you?”

He hesitated, face tightening. “It shouldn’t,” he said finally. “You’re right. I do know you’re not going to leave me. I don’t know why it still itches at me so badly that you’re not moving in completely.”

“Well, I know I’m not really abandoning Dad,” I said, “but logic doesn’t always make it easier.”

“No, it doesn’t, does it?” His lips curved into a rueful smile. “Perhaps I’ll become your new assistant and loom in your workshop in the cottage every day, gazing soulfully at you for hours on end so we’ll never be parted for a single moment.”

“That might get just a tad awkward whenever I make a new device out of iron and you get terrible burns,” I said dryly.

He laughed, his pale face lighting up. “The sacrifices we make for love.” Tugging me close, Leander tipped his forehead against mine. “Don’t worry,” he murmured as our twin breaths mingled. “Go and make your new invention. Dazzle the world. I won’t even distract you by looming, I promise. I’ll stay and get my own work done instead, and we’ll see each other tomorrow—but only if you’re ready to take a break by then.”

“I will be.” Feeling five times lighter than I had a few minutes ago, I gave him a smacking kiss, bounced out of bed and scooped up both shoes with one hand. “You should see what I’m designing for your wedding gift!”

“Will it look good doused in blood?” Leander asked blandly.

“As long as there aren’t two hundred guests there to see it!” I caroled as I strode across the room. “I’m not backing down on this one, Leander. I do not do crowds, even for you!”

But when I pushed open the front door of his castle a moment later, I found myself facing one after all.

There might be some people in the world who could find a large group gathering outside their door and not immediately look for torches and pitchforks in their hands, but I had been well trained. Every piece of metal in Leander’s long front hallway shot through the air to hover around me in jangling, threatening anticipation before I finally realized that I recognized all of these faces, and none of them were likely to be here on a Purifying mission.