And with her gaze I was thrown back into the past, to the time I’d gone diving with Emahla. Even when my lungs were bursting, she’d kept kicking, her feet disappearing ahead of me and past the reefs. But when she’d surfaced next to me, after I’d long since given up, there’d not been anything spiteful in her laughter.

“You’re a fish,” I’d said to her, still gasping in air. “It’s hardly fair to think I could keep up.”

“So you’re in love with a fish?” she’d said, kicking closer to me.

“Can you blame me? She’s a very beautiful fish.” And then she’d kissed me and I’d lost what remained of my breath. Kissing her did that to me. Every single time. My chest ached. I’d accepted that she was gone, but thinking about her still hurt me as much as it brought me joy.

Lin still looked at me, waiting. “Yes, exactly like that,” I said, still startled. “But Emahla—” I heard the name leave my lips as if someone else had uttered it. My chest tightened and I had the sudden sensation of falling, as though both floor and ground had disappeared. Shit. Shit shit shit.

Lin’s brows drew together. I could see the crease between them. “Who is Emahla?”

“I meant to say ‘Eminence’,” I said, heat rising to my cheeks. Real smooth, Jovis. Real believable.

“But you said ‘Emahla’.”

I didn’t know why I didn’t want to tell her, only that the thought of it made my insides shrivel. “Someone I once knew. I’m sorry. Your eyes – they look like hers.”

The crease between her eyes disappeared; the look she gave me was sad. Not as though she pitied me, but as though she could look past my feeble words and understood exactly what I meant. As if she knew how it felt to lose someone who had defined your life. And then, suddenly, I did want to tell her, because I knew she would understand. I wanted to tell her all of it. I opened my mouth.

A knock sounded at the door. “Eminence?”

Her gaze turned from me. “Come in.”

I collapsed back into my chair, wanting nothing more than to shrink into it, to make myself unnoticeable.

A servant entered, a jacket draped over his arm. “I was asked to bring you this. We’re a humble island in comparison to Imperial, so I’m afraid we do not have anything to match your station, Eminence.”

A lie. The man had no ability to dissemble. He held out the jacket. It was a humble thing, brown, the embroidery unsteady, as though the hand stitching it had been more than just a little distracted. It looked like a child’s jacket.