I crossed the room and turned my mirror around, only to see my own reflection staring back, and it took the fight out of me. I rested the mirror against the wall and slid to my floor. There, I drew my legs to my chest, hugging them tightly, and sobbed.

I did not even look up when my door opened, or when Ana knelt beside me and drew me into her arms.

“Shh,” she soothed, smoothing her hand over my hair.

“I hate him,” I said. “I hate him, and I love him.”

“Let’s not speak of it now,” she said.

So I didn’t.

Instead, I cried until I couldn’t shed tears any longer, and by the time I sat up, my face was swollen and a little painful.

Ana reached forward, brushing away the strands of my hair that stuck to my tear-stained face.

“I am so tired,” I said. “And I know that is not fair because you have lived this life longer than me…but I can’t—” My voice faltered.

“You do not have to have lived a hundred years or even twenty. If your soul is tired, you will be tired.”

A few stray tears fell down my cheeks.

“He has invited a witch-hunter into our home,” I said.

I almost could not stand how Ana looked at me, as if she pitied my heartbreak.

“I know how you feel,” she said. “I am afraid, too, but I also know why Adrian allowed Solaris to stay.”

I rubbed my eyes harder, to the point that they hurt. I did not want to hear reason. I knew the reason, and I despised that it had to be this way.

“If he does not quell the hysteria…we are in even more danger,” she said.

“I am in no danger,” I said, swallowing hard. “As your cousin so graciously reminded me earlier, I have no magic.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I know what it is to have magic, Ana,” I said.

She shook her head. “You are equating harnessing magic with having it. They are not the same.”

We stared at each other and after a moment, I asked, “What are we going to do?”

“For now, you had better summon Violeta,” she said. “Adrian has called for a feast.”

“What?”

“While he conceded to allowing Solaris to stay, he wishes to remind Revekka there is a price to pay for treason, so we are celebrating Gesalac’s execution.”

I was not so surprised given Solaris’s arrival and Dracul’s death—Dracul, who had been searching Cordova for Julian, along with his men. It would not go unnoticed that the traitor was still missing, and where were the rest of Dracul’s men?

I could not help wondering if Julian might be responsible for Dracul’s death somehow—but then, how did that explain how the villagers had died?