It should live with her mother’s lies: do the right things and you’ll be rewarded! It should live with Franz, who could have told her at any time that he was in love with her sister, his pretense never necessary. And it should live with Maxi, who was knowingly toying with her—and her sister. Who used their hurt against them. She let the anger sit on her skin, burn down the careful walls she’d kept around her real opinions, burn through the shame and guilt that had been lapping at its edges. She’d been ashamed of her anger. But now she realized that it was protective. Powerful, even. She’d just been aiming it at the wrong places.

Maxi lifted a hand to run it along the bottom of her bobbed haircut. Helene’s eyes were flint, her heart fire. She leaned ever so slightly toward him, eyes narrowed, and flicked her gaze to his.

“I’m not your consolation prize.”

Her anger was hers to wield.

She shoved her empty martini glass onto a small wrought iron table, turned her chin upward, and left Maxi standing there, under the archway, watching her go.

The night had unlocked something in Helene. She’d been holding back the tide, and it was time to let it through. Flatten the levee, burn the bridges, and damn the consequences. She felt a little like—

Elisabeth.

She went after her sister. Elisabeth wasn’t in the hall, but Helene knew where her rooms were. She only hoped she was right that Elisabeth would go back there now.

For the first time in months, Helene’s heart reached out for her sister, unencumbered. How had she been so foolish? She’d thought all the hurt had been caused by Elisabeth. But that wasn’t true. Wasn’t even close to the truth. Mother. Sophie. The Habsburg court. They’d torn Helene from her best friend in the world. It wasn’t just rejection from Franz that had bent Helene into a new shape; it was the loss of the person she actually loved most.

Helene swept into Elisabeth’s rooms without knocking. The bed was empty, the dressing room too. But she knew her sister better than anyone in the world. She knew beds and dressing rooms weren’t the only places to find her, weren’t even the most likely places. Dew-soaked grass under an open window. Tree branches too close to the house. Hidden in the folds of a heavy curtain, listening to your every secret. These were the places to look.

Helene found her curled up inside a cream curtain on the far side of the bedroom, face wet with tears, skirt spread around her like a puddle.

Helene moved down to her sister’s level, studying her bleeding makeup and puffy eyes. “Are you all right?”