Every time she gave her heart to someone, they chose someone else. She was the unwanted one, the twin who was an afterthought when her father taught them magic, the girl whom no one ever picked.

Her shoulders shook, and her throat felt raw, and she realized belatedly she was still wearing the borrowed dress. Her clothes were in Gawain’s chambers. Well, her brother’s clothes.

She’d retrieve them in the morning.

All she wanted was to be alone with her misery. Earlier, she’d felt as if she was filled with stars. Now the stars were gone, and there was nothing to light her way back from this dark and empty void.

There was a tentative knock on her door.

She didn’t move. She couldn’t move. It had been foolish to come back here dressed as she was.

She waited for whomever it was to give up, but the knock sounded again.

“Go away,” she called. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She just wanted to be left alone to cry and have feelings.

“It’s me,” Arthur said.

“I repeat, go away,” she called.

Instead, he opened the door.

There he was—a prince dressed for a ball. The jeweled circlet shining in his dark hair, the fine silk jacket clasped with silver and gold. The handsome curve of his jaw, and the way he smelled faintly of roses and steel. The heir to the throne, engaged to marry a beautiful princess. He wasn’t the boy from the library at all. And maybe he had never been.

Sard, she wished she’d mumbled a locking spell at the door.

“I guess congratulations are in order,” she said sourly.

“Emry, don’t,” he ground out.

“How could you do that to me?” she demanded, crawling out of bed and attempting to smooth the wrinkles from her dress.

“I didn’t know my father was going to declare it like that!” Arthur winced, but didn’t apologize. Which was just so—ugh.

“What am I to you?” she asked.

“You’re my wizard.” Arthur didn’t hesitate.

“Did you propose before we snuck away to the library? Or after, while I was lacing my dress?”

She glared daggers at him, hating that he’d put her in this impossible position. That he had acted as though she was more to him than just his wizard. That he had destroyed everything without so much as a warning.

“Emry, you don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t want to marry her.”

“Don’t want to, or aren’t going to?” she demanded.

His silence spoke volumes.

“May you have many sons,” she said. “Isn’t that the blessing you bestow on a member of the royal family?”

“I don’t love her.”

“May you have many illegitimate heirs, then,” Emry said wretchedly.

“Emry—” Arthur began.