WHEN MOTHER CAME TO ROUSE FRANZ, SHE FOUND him already awake—half dressed, standing at the window, staring across fog-draped grounds. His body was still weighed down by the nightmare, his mind even heavier. It had been foolish to think that something as fragile and perfect as what he felt for Elisabeth could survive the ravages of reality.

“Such an early riser these days,” Mother said, joining him beside the window.

“I had a nightmare.” It was a simple sentence, but the confession sent a spike of adrenaline through him.

She dismissed the statement with a wave of her hand. “Today is your engagement, darling. Let’s not dwell on a dream.”

She didn’t understand how the nightmare was still in the room with him, the dread, the loss still raw across his skin. And if he was going to give up the one person he thought might understand, he needed someone else to see him. Really see him.

He tried again. “It wasn’t just a dream, Mother. It was the assassination—”

Sophie cut him off, her tone shifting so quickly from light to sharp. “We’ve talked about this. Those men are dead, and I don’t want to dwell on what they did to us. You’re stronger than this, Franz.”

The words were a dismissal and a blow. He hadn’t even confessed the full truth—the agony—of the nightmares, the memories, and already she thought him weak. He could feel his heart walling itself off.

When he didn’t speak, his mother said, “If you think this kind of weakness will play on people’s sympathies, trust me, dear, it won’t.”

Another gut punch. Not only did she think him weak, she thought him an attention-seeker. An especially ironic accusation since her other son was Vienna’s most notorious attention-seeker, scandals piling up in his wake, and she’d always seemed to love him for it. Maxi often said Franz was Mother’s favorite, but it was moments like these that convinced Franz the opposite was true. Mother gave Maxi the freedom to be whatever he was—performer, rogue, unreliable, cruel—while Franz was allowed no such thing.

He wished Elisabeth were here. Longed for those fleeting moments when he’d felt so seen by her. Just minutes ago, he’d been certain she was right to run away, to tell him no. He’d decided to marry her sister, to stop believing in the magic of the thing between them.

But now—

If he really let her go, was he letting go of his only chance to be seen? The last thread connecting him to the truth of himself?

“Come now, it’s time.” Mother beckoned Franz to follow her from the room.

She was right. It was time—and Franz still didn’t know what he was going to do.