Zadok blinked, a single tear rolling down his cheek.

My chest felt tight, and all I could manage to say was, “I’m so sorry.”

“I didn’t know she was pregnant. We were always—” He cut off that line of thought as he glanced up, remembering who he was talking to. Thankfully. “The day I was torn out of the human realm by the king, we were supposed to meet. She had something to tell me. What if…” He swallowed thickly, his face draining of its rosy color. “Another hour and I might have known about you.”

“Would it have made a difference?” I mused out loud.

“I… I don’t know,” he said honestly, combing a hand through his hair, messing it up further. “It may have even made the situation worse.”

Well, that was depressing to think about, so I tried not to. “How did Cair’s memory return?” I asked, changing the subject, and he jolted upright.

“Oh! A memory erasing spell only works until the subjects see a picture or the full written name of the forgotten party. As I said to Cair—” He cut himself off, cringing as if suddenly remembering something. “His Highness⁠—”

“Cair is fine,” my mate said, and Zadok nodded in gratitude.

“I believe his father led you both to my secret office in the library, made sure you found me, so that you would be here when you…” Died wasn’t said, but it was implied. “He always did have a flair for the dramatics.”

I frowned, looking to Cair for context. My mate gritted his fangs as if he was trying to keep a specific detail hidden, but after another insistent eyebrow raise, he sighed. “The poison that killed you was Father’s,” he growled, the tie between our souls trembling with rage. “He was the one who sent the reapers.”

“Holy shit,” I murmured. Though… why did that revelation seem almost anticlimactic? As if I’d already known, and just hearing it aloud was like confirmation that a theory loitering in the back of my mind had been right all along. I mean, the king was transparent in his disdain for me, and I’d stressed over his capabilities with my mate more than once, but that wasn’t it. It was a voice, a sentence rattling around my brain, growing more and more coherent.

“You never know who’s in the shadows, waiting to pounce.”

The lightbulb flared. “Maeve.”

“What?”

“The day we left, Maeve warned me that this was going to happen,” I revealed before staring off to the side, a disbelieving scoff whipping out of me.