“So then. Do I have my answer?” I asked him. “You truly feel you could succeed? You are certain?”

“Certain?” He shook his head. “No. Confident? Yes. But, Erik, what has led you to this change?”

“There has been no change,” I growled, clenching one hand into a fist. “That is why your confidence must become your certainty. For should you fail, I will kill you this time, Shirazi. You and I are both aware that is not a threat so much as it is a warning. To us both.”

At this, he scowled. “If there is any hope for my success, then I need to know why you wish to try again. It could be that very reason that sees us through this time.”

“I . . .” I began, then stopped myself. Because, while I wanted to put him off, I could see his point. Also, in keeping my horrible secret, was I not leaving a terrible gap through which Stephanie might still fall? And lastly, if I was to sell myself out, should I not do it as thoroughly as possible while I still had the chance? “The girl, Rastin,” I blurted. “It’s the girl.”

“The little one. She reminds you of your sister. Is that it?”

“No,” I snapped, hating him for prying at me like this. And yet, here was my opportunity to admit my deepest fear to the one person who could do anything about it. “The . . . other girl.”

“What about her?” Rastin pressed, the sudden reluctance in his tone suggesting he suspected the truth even if he remained unprepared to believe it.

“You said she is seventeen,” he said, making the connection on his own when I did not immediately answer. “A year younger than you were when . . . Oh. Oh dear. You like her.”

“I don’t like her,” I said, speaking through gritted teeth. Because of how garish he made it sound. As if she were some sort of pastry—something to merely like or dislike.

“Love, then,” he said, the very word causing an echo of that grim pain to return.

Was it that? I would not have thought it possible.

“How?” Rastin pressed.

To that, what could he expect me to say? How could I explain to him the way she had about her? Her manner and intelligence. Her fire. How could I make him understand that her presence in this house had done something to me? Awoken something—galvanizing me without my even being aware.

But Wrath. He had known it all along.

“I don’t know how, Shirazi,” I said, a new tremor starting in my limbs, as though it was God himself I was confessing to and not a mere man.

But it was out now, and I had said as much as I could bring myself to say.

“This mask you’re wearing,” he demanded. “Tell me what its name is.”

Did he still think this was a trick?

“Valor,” I said. “For now . . . I am Valor.”