Unbidden, her gaze found Illya across the untidy circle. He was sitting in a loose sprawl, one knee pulled up with an arm wrapped around it, the other supporting his weight as he leaned back. The firelight cast shadows over his face and the sharp angle of his jaw. Ephyra let herself look. It was the most relaxed she’d ever seen him before, miles and miles away from the prim, buttoned-up boy she’d met for the first time in Pallas Athos. He wasn’t looking at her, focused instead on Hector, who was gesticulating about something—Ephyra had lost the thread of the conversation.

She knew she owed Illya an apology of some sort. In her grief and anger, she’d treated him with cruelty.

But apologies were not exactly something Ephyra was adept at. Her gaze fell on Hector. It had taken her years to say she was sorry for taking his family from him. For taking his life.

But she didn’t have years. Tonight could very well be all any of them had left.

As Hassan laughed loudly at something Hector had said, Ephyra spotted Anton pulling Jude to his feet and the two of them slipped out of the room without a word. Jude turned over his shoulder and caught Ephyra looking. He gave her a small smile.

She smiled back, and didn’t say anything to the others as Jude and Anton disappeared through the doors.

With Hector, Khepri, and Hassan entertaining one another on one side of the room, Ephyra picked herself up and made her way toward Illya. He looked up at her approach but didn’t say anything as she settled beside him, leaning against the bookcase.

“You’re worried about tomorrow, too,” Ephyra said after a moment. It wasn’t a question.

Illya nodded.

“About Anton?”

“Of course.”

“There’s something I’ve been wondering,” she said. “A long time ago, when you were trying to manipulate Shara’s treasure thieves to get the Chalice, you said that Pallas made you torture your own brother. Is that true?”

He bowed his head. “Yes.”

“Why did you do it?”

“The Hierophant wanted—”

“No,” she said. “I mean why.”

He stared at her for a moment and then with a ragged sigh raked a hand through his hair. “I think there was a part of me that wanted to punish him.”

“For what?”

“There were times when we were young,” he said haltingly. “When I’d see a glimpse of—of what this power would do to him. What it would take from him. In those moments, I would lash out at him even harder. I would hurt him. And after, at night, when he was asleep, I would just—sit there, looking at him. Crying.”