“No,” Grey said, thinking back to the night of the yacht gala. “No, we’re not talking again. But…” It was hard to explain. Something had shifted for him that night at the gala, seeing the pain he felt mirrored in her eyes. The way she’d said she still cared about him. They’d almost kissed before DE interrupted them. And Jaya hadn’t said she didn’t want to be with him. She hadn’t refuted that she had feelings for him; she’d said she had a duty to her family. Those were two very different things.

“You love her,” Leo said simply.

Caterina yelled the word “asshole,” and then there was quieter heated arguing between her and Alaric, but Grey ignored them and stared at Leo. “Love? Does love make you feel ill, like you’re being tossed about on a stormy sea? Does it steal your sleep and make you feel like your insides are on fire?”

“From your symptoms, it’s either love or a stomach virus,” Rahul put in.

Love. That was a big word. Was he in love with Jaya? Grey didn’t know. What he did know was that she’d taught him, with her steady kindness, with her unfailing warmth, that he wasn’t what his father believed he was. What Grey had come to believe he was too. She’d shown him he was more than some cursed, damaged, unloved aristocrat. She’d shown him he was capable of more, that he had so much uncovered promise within him. And, weirdly enough, he’d begun to believe her.

Seeing her at the gala, seeing how much she seemed to be suffering too, Grey had felt the ice begin to thaw once again. He’d begun to realize that even if he died on his eighteenth birthday, even if the curse took him, he wanted to be the master of his fate until then. He wanted to die knowing he’d lived his life how he wanted to live it.

Grey turned to Leo and Rahul. “I have to fight for her,” he said suddenly. Of course. It was so obvious.

“Quoi?” Leo said, sitting up. “What do you mean, ‘fight for her’?”