And finally, his temper snapped.

“You do not belong there,” he snarled, a storm of wind and heat, thunder and lightning punctuating his words. Claws caught me by the throat and hurled me to the ground, defeated.

“You could have told her that I love her,” I said into the dirt. “You could have told her that I can see her. Hear her.”

A scaled foot tipped with bloody claws dug into the ground next to my face. “And what would knowing do for her?” he said, shape blurring and shifting into a human form. “How well would she live her life knowing you were constantly looking over her shoulder?”

“It might be some small comfort.”

“For her? Or for you?”

They were wise words. Not that I listened, the stubbornness that was my best and worst ally pushing me back to my portal to watch the life I longed for. The life that should’ve been mine.

Cécile, by contrast, lived.

With Sabine and our son, who’d eventually informed her his name was Alexandre, in tow, she moved back to Trianon, where she met with the banker, Bouchard, about taking the reins of the businesses she’d inherited from Anushka, the foremost of which was the Trianon Opera House. She took control of it with characteristic ferocity, ruthlessly firing those who stood in the way of her vision, while hiring the best and brightest stars, who she paid exorbitantly, or in her words, “Precisely what they’re worth.”

It took several months of work to repair the damage done to the opera house while it had housed refugees, and I smiled every time she muttered, “It’s your cursed gold that’s paying to fix this, Tristan.”

And on opening night, she took to the stage in front of a sold out crowd. I opened a portal in Bouchard’s box, watching over his shoulder as she sang her heart out.

She did not stop there, investing in opportunities with a keen eye for business that I wouldn’t have expected from her. For Sabine, she provided the funds for a dress shop, and my coconspirator swiftly became the most in demand designer in Trianon, her creations worn by nobility and songstresses alike. After much argument, she convinced Chris to accept the gold needed to import stock from the continent, and he spent his days surrounded by horses and Souris’s growing number of progeny.

When all was settled as she wanted it, Cécile toured the continent, singing on every great stage and becoming as famous for her voice as she was for her role in the events that had taken place on the Isle, which had become legendary throughout the known world. And with her, she always brought our son, raining affection on him even as she castigated him for all the less desirable traits he’d inherited from me.

He was a clever boy, dark-haired and slight, and constantly getting into trouble. As he grew older, he took liberal advantage of his fame and good looks, and kissed half the girls in Trianon before Aiden and Zoé’s daughter took a liking to him, thus ensuring he never looked twice at another girl ever again.