Myrddin stepped to His Highness’s side. “It had to be this way, Seneschal-elect,” he said simply. “We rather thought you’d be pleased to learn the truth.”

Understanding was a series of clicks and snaps in my brain, the sound of the truth fitting itself into place, unfolding itself into its natural shape.

Why Bertilak had left me alone, day after day. Why Bear hadn’t feared the wrath of his prince or Perrault. Why a guard would study statesmanship or sit at dinner with the king and his children. The old duchess at tea had nearly told me herself—had asked me when I’d met Bear, instead of Bertilak, and then corrected herself as if she’d merely misspoken.

They’d watched me for two weeks, watched me try to please and impress them when they knew they’d set me up. I felt as though they’d sliced open my abdomen to pick through my innards and augur all the secrets I’d thought were mine and Bear’s alone.

I’d been blind to it all.

I was going to throw up.

Briefly, fighting nausea, I imagined accepting Bear’s proposal, imagined us blissfully in love. The picture tugged at my heart and my will, but how would the court see us?

I saw in the way Constantine nodded reassuringly at his grandson how Bear would be perceived—a romantic, helplessly in love with me. Whatever his sins, they would be forgiven. But I would be remembered quite differently.

I would be painted England’s flightiest princess—the girl with no self-control, who gave her heart and lips to one man while being courted by another. Even the truth—their purposes—the fact that I was right—would not justify me.

Most of all: If I stayed, if I married him, would I ever really trust him when we’d begun with a lie?

Perhaps another girl would have found the whole affair romantic. But standing before the court, raw and exposed and sadly mistaken, I felt as if I were back in Potomac all over again, searing from the acid sting of Peter’s public rejection.

I just wish you’d told me when it was just the two of us.

It never was just the two of us.

Except I knew Bear—I really knew him, and he knew me, and we cared for one another. And still, somehow, I’d found myself naked in front of a crowd.

I shrank back and bumped into Yu, who caught my elbow. His lips were pressed tightly together, his expression sharp and cold. “Steady,” he whispered. Skop, on my right, squeezed my hand.

I cleared my throat, blinking hard. “This is extraordinary.”

Bear shook his head, trying to soothe me. “Selah, you don’t understand.”

“No. I do.” I took a shuddering breath. “Was any of it real? Was that even your study?” I asked. My thoughts were shattered.