He wiped at his face, a breath shuddering through him. Ephyra’s heart clenched in her chest, and she didn’t try to stop herself from reaching to touch him, her hand resting gently on his shoulder.

“I—I’ve never told anyone that before,” he croaked.

Ephyra was silent for a long moment. “You felt guilty? For what you did to him?”

Illya hunched his shoulders. “I hated myself. I knew it was wrong. But I still did it. When his Grace manifested I just—I knew. That our lives as we knew them were over. We didn’t have much, but we had each other. And I just … I knew he was going to leave me. In some ways, it felt like he already had. I guess I wanted to punish him for it. I think I just wanted to make myself hate him, to make him hate me, so when he left me alone it wouldn’t hurt as much.”

Ephyra shivered. She understood all too well what Illya meant. She’d lived with the same fear her whole life—that Beru would leave her and she’d be alone. While she had never let that fear twist her against her sister, she had seen how that fear had corrupted her in other ways. How she had turned it on anyone else in her life that had dared to get close.

“Pretty awful, right?” he said ruefully, one hand twisting in his hair. “And it didn’t work. Well—he does hate me, that part worked. But the rest? It still gutted me when he ran away. Nearly killed me.”

“It is awful,” Ephyra said, and when Illya looked over at her she just shrugged. “But—have you ever told him any of this?”

Illya’s fingers pulled at his hair until it stuck up and Ephyra ignored the urge to smooth it. “Sort of. That night in Pallas Athos, remember?”

“Kind of ruined by the fact that you had us arrested by the Sentry five minutes later,” Ephyra reminded him. “So I don’t know if that counts.”

Illya laughed humorlessly. “You’re right. But what would it matter, anyway? I didn’t love him enough. I should’ve, and I didn’t. Maybe I didn’t know how.”

Ephyra looked away, the reminder of what she’d accused him of sharp in her mind. “Illya,” she said quietly. “About … what you said to me.”

He shook his head. “We don’t need to do this. Not tonight.”

She turned to face him head-on, tucking her knees to her chest. “Maybe I do.”

He waited.

“You were there for me when I had no one else,” she said, her voice shaking.

“I get it,” he said. “I was the option when there were no others. You were grieving, and I probably took advantage of that—”