I clutch my glass between my hands with my back pressed to one of the shelves.

“And then we realized we had a connection.”

“Your mate is the Aurora Prince,” D’Arcy says, and something moves behind her eyes.

“Yes,” I whisper, emotion twisting in my chest. Is. Was.

“Where is he now?” Cyan asks.

“He’s dead.” A collective intake of breath swirls around the room.

Tears fill my eyes. I don’t have to pretend any of this.

“Liar,” D’Arcy says. “If your mate were dead, it wouldn’t be possible to have this conversation with us.”

I blink at her words. “What does that mean?”

“I mean, if your mate had died, you’d be a broken mess of nothing.” She pins me with an unsettling look, dark remorse flitting across her expression. “Believe me. I know what it’s like.”

I’m so thrown off that it takes me a moment to process what she’s saying.

“You lost your mate,” I say.

My words come out strangled because I know. I know what she means. I feel this cavernous space in my chest where Nadir has been carved out of me.

D’Arcy tips her chin, and Bronte and Cyan exchange a look. Something tells me this isn’t information she offers up willingly or often. “It was a long time ago. But yes, I did.”

I remember Nadir telling me she’s had seven different partners, and I wonder if that’s how she’s filled the void of losing her mate.

But now they’re all looking at me curiously, and I’ve just been caught in yet another lie.

My eyes narrow, and I lift my chin, trying to salvage this. “Perhaps some of us are just stronger.” I issue the words as a challenge, hoping to force her to back down, but I’m dealing with an ancient queen who radiates power. She scoffs, and something about that raises my ire.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, hissing at me. “This isn’t about what you can and cannot endure. When someone’s mate dies, the one left behind succumbs to the worst sickness you can possibly imagine. Pain and agony like you can’t even comprehend. I spent months screaming and wailing, wishing to die. There are entire weeks of blackness I don’t even remember, my mind and body were so broken. It took years to fully heal, and even now, centuries later, I will never be the same.”

She’s leaning towards me now, her cool demeanor siphoned into a rigid slab of steel. “So do not presume to turn your nose up at me, thinking you’re somehow immune to the worst fate a Fae can endure, girl.”