“The Duke. Yes, you mentioned his threats before.”

His voice dripped with sarcasm, but I ignored it and continued. “He found out that she was pregnant. He was angry, and he set Lessa to kill Pénélope. She managed to escape, but I knew… This was the only way.”

The King stared at me, unblinking. “So you stole from me and broke my laws not to save Lady Pénélope, but to provide her with some extra weeks or months of life, at the likely cost of your own.”

“Yes.” And I’d do it all over again.

“Because you believed her father, the Duke d’Angoulême, intended to kill her or have her killed should she remain in his household?”

“Yes.”

Opening a drawer, the King extracted a card, sliding it across the desk toward me. “It’s been some time since I was invited to an engagement at the Angoulême manor, but I suppose there was no helping it given you are my nephew. Rather interestingly, it arrived prior to you and Pénélope returning from your little sojourn in the labyrinth.”

I stared at the thick paper embossed with red and gold. It was an invitation to a bonding celebration at the Angoulême manor. My bonding celebration. And I knew in an instant that I’d misinterpreted my aunt’s foretelling. It hadn’t been a warning against me – it had been a warning for me. A warning about the Duke’s intentions.

“You didn’t save her from anything, because her life was never truly in jeopardy,” the King said, and the invitation burst into flame. “You, nephew, have been played.”

Chapter 22

Pénélope

I woke with a start in the blackness, the feel of the sheets and the scent of the air disorienting until I created a light, and Marc’s bedroom materialized around me. But the familiarity of his belongings brought me no comfort, a deep sense of unease weighing upon my mind, implacable and unshakeable, because it was not my own.

“Marc,” I murmured, then reached for the silken nightdress that lay next to the bed, the fabric cool as I pulled it over my head. He was not here, nor in the home, but it felt like I could walk toward him with the unerring precision of one holding a compass finding their way north. Though unnecessary, because wherever he had been, he was coming in this direction.

Not wherever, I thought, glancing at the clock. At the palace. The King had asked to see him first thing about his punishment, and while I was certain no physical harm had been delivered upon him, something else had. A million thoughts raced through my mind about what possible penance His Majesty might have demanded. That our bonding would be undone, though I knew this was impossible. That I’d be returned to my father, and that the most terrifying and glorious night of my life would be reduced to a reminder of what I’d lost, for however long my father allowed me to live.

“It cannot be undone,” I told myself, gulping down a glass of water to wash away the sourness rising up my throat. “They can’t take him away from you.”