Before I could ask he added, “So I sneaked into the garden and stole a vial of the Élixir. I convinced Élise to use it on next full moon–” his eyes flicked to mine “–the night you broke the curse. But she was dead by then.”

I opened my mouth to apologize, but no sound came out.

“Even if Tristan wins and delivers on his word,” he said, “it’s too late for us. I should get rid of this blasted potion.” He tugged on the chain. “It’s useless now.”

Before he could break the links, I caught his hand in mine and squeezed it tight. “It’s not. Please keep it. It meant something to her, and it would’ve broken her heart to see you throw it away.”

“It’s useless,” he repeated. “Angoulême took her away before I had the chance to know her – to truly know her.”

“I understand, but maybe one day–” I started to say that he might one day meet another girl he loved just as much, but instead said, “Maybe one day it will give someone else a chance.”

“Maybe.” He was silent for a long moment, then he tucked the vial back in his robes. “I’ll do whatever it takes to see that monster of a duke bleed out, just as his daughter did. How can I help? What do you need to know?”

I explained to him the only clue we had, and he swiftly moved amongst the shelves, withdrawing several books that he laid open on a table. “These were the Angoulême lands,” he said, tracing the outline of an area on the other side of the Isle. “Their estate was here, but the castle and all the surrounding property was destroyed after the Fall.” He shook his head. “Everything was. The humans wanted no part of our legacy to remain, and while there might be ruins of some of the larger structures, of a surety, no portraiture would have survived intact.”

I dug my nails into the table, trying not to let my frustration get the better of me. “Is there nothing of the trolls that survived? No place left on the Isle that would have meaning?”

“None that I know of, except…” He hesitated. “But no, none of the Angoulême ancestors were entombed there. The Montignys married with every other great family, but never them.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Montigny tomb in the mountains.” Martin went back to the stacks and retrieved another volume, this one filled with drawings embellished with beautiful color. “Until the Fall rendered it impossible to do so, every Montigny was interred in a mountain tomb. And when a king or queen died…” He stopped flipping through the book and spread it flat.

I stared at the drawing. “They carved their faces into the rock.”

Martin nodded. “The sculptures were too large for the humans to destroy, if they even knew they were there.”

This was the place where Angoulême was hiding, I knew it. And in the knowing, all the other pieces fell into place: the way Angoulême seemed oblivious to the flaws in Lessa’s disguise. His inappropriate familiarity with the girl who was supposed to be his daughter. Angoulême knew it was Lessa beneath Anaïs’s face, and had for some time.