Mayu covered her face with her hands. Nikolai remembered what Tolya and Tamar had told him about the kebben, about the bond between twins. He’d understood what this information would mean to her.

“He’s alive,” Nikolai said.

“I know. I would know if he was dead. I would feel it. Have they hurt him?”

“He’s a part of the khergud program.”

“Queen Makhi swore she would free him.” Mayu released a bitter laugh. “But why would she keep her word? I failed. The king lives.”

“Thank you for that.” Nikolai watched her carefully. “You’re thinking of taking your own life.”

Her expression showed the truth of it. “I am a prisoner in a foreign country. Your Grisha keep my body weak. My brother is having his soul tortured out of him and I can do nothing to stop it.” She cast her eyes up to the ceiling. “And I murdered an innocent man, a good man, for nothing. I am not Tavgharad. I am not a princess. I am not anyone.”

“You are Reyem Yul-Kaat’s sister, and he still lives.”

“But as what? The khergud … The things they endure, they lose their humanity.”

Nikolai thought of the demon lurking inside him, the power of it. “Maybe the gift of being human is that we do not give up—even when all hope is lost.”

“Then maybe I’m the one who isn’t human anymore.” A grim thought, but her look was speculative when she asked, “Will you force Princess Ehri to wed you?”

“I don’t think I’ll have to.”

Mayu shook her head in disbelief. And perhaps in grief for the humble boy she’d met in a king’s clothes. “You’re that charming?”

“I have a gift for persuasion. I once talked a tree out of its leaves.”

“Nonsense.”

“Well, it was autumn. I can’t take full credit.”

“More foolishness. You think to persuade Ehri and me to turn against Queen Makhi.”

“I think the queen has made the argument for me. She nearly cost both of you your lives.”

“Tell me you would have spared my life or even Isaak’s, if your nation’s future hung in the balance.”

There was no room for lies now. “I can’t.”

“Tell me you wouldn’t sacrifice my life and Princess Ehri’s to save your crown.”

Nikolai rose. “I can’t do that either. But before I put anyone to death and we all go merrily to the next world, I’d ask you to stay alive and try to entertain a bit of hope.”

“Hope for what?”

“That there is never only one answer to a question. You’re alive today, Mayu Kir-Kaat, and I’d prefer you kept it that way. And Isaak, that brave, besotted martyr, would want the same.”

She closed her eyes. “Though I put a knife in his heart?”