Her lips parted and she shook her head. “Marc, no. I can’t hold that sort of power over you.”

“You already do.” Pulling her against me, I tangled my fingers in the silken length of her hair. “Because there is nothing you could ask of me that I’d ever refuse.”

Sleep would not come.

I lay in the darkness, forcing myself to remain still so as not to disturb Pénélope’s rest. Yet my mind was the exact opposite of still, tossing and turning, putting aside one trouble only to latch upon another. At the center of it all sat the Duke d’Angoulême, laughing and laughing, because he had all of us dancing to his tune.

It had been the Duke who’d upset Pénélope earlier, that much I knew, though not what was said. Thus far, she had not chosen to tell me herself, and I wouldn’t press. I trusted her to tell me if it was something I should know.

I trusted her with everything.

Rolling on my side, I imagined her in my mind’s eye as she was in this instant. Eyes closed with lashes dark against her cheek. Hair spilled across the pillow, fine as any silk. Her full lips slightly parted, one hand cupped beneath her cheek, nails still bearing traces of oil paint that her maid had missed.

Perfect.

The soft thud thud of her heart was a finer thing to me than any music, able to pull upon any one of my emotions, losing none of its sweetness over the sixty-two days we’d been bonded. Never stop, I told it. Promise me you’ll never stop beating.

If only a heart had so much power.

Habit drew my focus away from her, my magic delving for that faint third power, magic pure and unfocused, a life whose only purpose was to exist.

And I found nothing.

Dread. It fell across me like a pall, and Pénélope shifted uneasily in her sleep. Sitting upright, I focused harder, searching for that tiny glow of magic, a hollowness growing inside me with every passing second, because there was nothing. It was gone.

“Pénélope.”

She jerked awake, blinking in the obscene glare of my light, which had formed without me even noticing. As though my eyes might find what my power could not. “What’s happened?” she asked, pushing onto one elbow.

The strap of her nightdress slipped down, and I stared at the dark strip of fabric that looked ominously like a slash in her skin. “I think…” I knew.

She went still. Unblinking. Unmoving. With one hand, she reached under the thick layer of blankets, then removed it as though she’d been shocked.

It was covered in blood.

Anguish rushed to fill the emptiness in my chest, hers and mine, and it was too much. More than anyone could stand to bear. And then she screamed, the sound shrill and piercing and horrifying.

A sound that would haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.

Chapter 29

Pénélope