As they ate, Aurora continued with her story while gorging on the small feast that had been brought for them. Strangely, she felt as if she had been plucked out of time. All the pain and stress and worry of the last few weeks melted away in the presence of her friend, and for just a little while she felt normal again. She told Nova about her magic, and what she could do with it—the good and the bad, filling in the specifics that they had not had time for during the rescue attempt. She did not hesitate to peel back her shirt and show Nova the shifting likenesses of the two different storms she now carried inside her.

Aurora almost told Nova about the darkness of the second soul she had taken, but could not bring herself to break the happy mood of their reunion. Someday she would tell her friend how much she feared the soul that was now part of her own, that she worried it would taint her, manipulate her, prune her into something she did not want to be.

But that could wait for another day.

“And you?” Aurora asked. “You do not have to talk about what happened to you if you do not wish. Especially to me. But if you want to … I am here to listen.”

Nova’s large eyes lowered, and she smiled. “It was not all bad.”

A deep, rosy hue began to spread up her friend’s neck, but before Aurora could pounce with questions, there was another knock at the door. Assuming it was another maid, Aurora called out, “Come in.”

The door swung inward, and as soon as she heard the thud of a heavy boot on stone, she knew this was no maid. She was still wearing a simple dressing gown, something she did not even remember putting on for herself the night before, and she was sitting at a small table with Nova, her plate scraped clean of food. She clenched her fists around the edge of the table, and sat ramrod straight as Cassius Locke appeared in the room.

He was different from how she remembered him.

He was still handsome—though his short cropped hair had been left to grow slightly wild, and he looked tired. There was still a brooding menace to his presence that reminded her this man was capable of terrible things. But the way he stayed at the door, almost unsure … that was entirely new.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, remaining near the open door.

“Better,” she answered honestly. The sleep and food had done wonders, though she would not be against crawling back into bed for another day or two if she were not potentially in grave danger. Too tired to tiptoe around the subject, she asked him outright, “What do you want with me?”