Nomi didn’t reply. He didn’t touch her, but every nerve in her back was alert, waiting, straining through the darkness.

“You’re safe with me,” Malachi said, as softly as breathing. “You know that, right?”

For a long moment, Nomi didn’t speak or move.

Then, slowly, she unfurled.

Her legs welcomed the stretch. Inch by awkward inch, she forced her body to relax. There was still space between them, a space he didn’t attempt to breach. Neither did she.

He said, haltingly, “I want you to know… I never would have forced you. Grace or no Grace, I never would have, Nomi. And I never will.”

Nomi thought of all the moments they’d shared at the palazzo—in the ocean, in his chambers, on the dance floor. How he’d never crossed the line. Even the night they’d kissed, in the center of the thunderstorm, she’d been surprised but… but eager, though she hadn’t admitted it to herself.

“I believe you,” she replied.

Nomi thought of Asa’s girls, taken from their homes, taken to the palazzo, without their parents’ consent. Without their consent.

“But…” His voice trailed off. The air thickened between them. She couldn’t feel his skin against her own and yet the knowledge that his arm was there, inches from hers, made her dizzy. “But I still feel the same as I did the night of my birthday. I still wish—I wish we could be…” He trailed off again.

He still cared for her.

It wasn’t a surprise, and yet it was. Nomi’s pulse raced. She couldn’t speak.

“Do you trust me?” Malachi asked when her silence filled the room. “Do you… do you want to be with me?”

Nomi took a few moments to answer. These were not simple questions. “I’m not sure it matters,” she said at last. “When you stop Asa, you will be the Superior. You will have Graces.” She let out a breath. Maybe, in a different life, a different world, her answer might have been different. “I can’t be your Grace, Malachi. Not now.”

“It wouldn’t work anyway,” he said, the ghost of a smile curling through his voice. “You’ve learned how to argue with me. You’d teach the other Graces to stand up for themselves, and there’d be a mutiny.”

“I hope they stand up to Asa,” Nomi blurted. She was worried for these women, these strangers. Now it seemed so inconceivable that she’d trusted Asa. That she’d believed him when he’d spouted all the things she’d wanted to hear. How strange that he’d poisoned her view of Malachi using the very qualities and dishonesty he himself possessed.

“I was so stupid,” she whispered.