Two of the royal guards pinned Eulalie with their bloodshadows and dragged her away, at which point Sireen gestured everyone else to rise. “Thank you all. It’s always a pleasure to have the chance to participate directly in all the cloaking and daggering. Eulalie’s public confession of crimes against the Crown will make it considerably easier to sell the eradication of the Travers household to the other great houses.”

She turned to Bitterlich. “I imagine it must have been especially difficult for you.”

“I live to serve,” Bitterlich said, as jauntily as he could. He felt drained, but in the way of a man who’d had a boil lanced. The wound was still there, but much of the pain had bled away.

“I do hope there is more to your life than that,” Sireen said. “Being locked into duty is just as bad as being locked into anything else. Speaking of which, the remaining members of the Succoring Shadow will see you tomorrow at sunup; we should have excellent light then.”

“I … beg your pardon,” Bitterlich said.

“What Eulalie did to you is the same kind of shadow surgery that the Succoring Shadow does. We have reason to believe that what she did to you is as reversible as the damage done to Jean-Claude. That is, if you want it reversed.” She cast a sly look at Isabelle. “She does.”

Bitterlich’s tongue seemed to take up his whole throat. Did he? Could they? He’d already discovered a world of intimacy with Isabelle that he thought he’d never have, but this? He’d never stopped wishing for it. Never let the wish get in his way. He’d packed it down so tightly that he could hardly bring himself to think it now.

“Just say yes,” Isabelle said with a lopsided smile. “Don’t overthink it.”

“Ah…” he said. “Yes.”

Isabelle and Bitterlich found Grand Leon at his hunting lodge, an expansive stone pile on the forested slopes in the hinterlands behind Rocher Royale. The pensioner roi had just arrived from a gallop through the woods with a pack of huntsmen, and he bade them join him at the fireside in one of his withdrawing rooms. Generous helpings of wine served to mellow the mood as they caught him up on their adventures. Isabelle was certain he’d already been briefed by Sireen and Impervia, but there was always something to be said from hearing the story from the horse’s mouth.

“I do worry that the Fenice will assume I was lying to them and start up their vendetta again,” Isabelle said.

“You were lying to them,” Grand Leon said, “but given that they had officially canceled the vendetta by the time you disappeared, they would have to start a new one. Times have changed, and you are once again a princess of l’Empire. I doubt they will find it politically expedient to do so.”