“C’est le cas. C’est juste que je ne suis plus intéressé, Stasia.” His voice was even more annoyed than it’d been before. I could roughly translate it. I don’t. No interest, Stasia.

Her entitled voice responded. “Les hommes ne se désintéressent pas des femmes comme moi. Alors si tu la gardes dans ton froc, ça veut dire que tu te réserves pour quelqu’un d’autre. Intéressant. C’est qui ?” Men don’t lose interest in beautiful women like me. Who are you fucking?

Magnus didn’t answer before he stormed out and kept going down the hallway, not seeing me because he headed in the opposite direction.

Stasia remained inside, probably recovering from his rejection.

I went after him. “Magnus?”

He stopped in front of the bathroom and slowly turned to look at me, his eyebrows raised. He immediately glanced behind me to make sure Fender was nowhere in sight. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Thank you…for being loyal to my sister.” I had a whole other agenda, but I had to show my gratitude for the one man who looked after her, who was loyal to her despite the dangerous position it placed him in. “I really… It means the world to me…that she has you.” I got choked up when I didn’t expect it, but this man deserved every ache of my heart. “You love her.”

Just like his brother, he had a face carved out of stone. No reaction of any kind. “What do you want from me?”

“Just to talk.”

His eyes filled with irritation, and he glanced over my shoulder several times to make sure Fender hadn’t come looking for me. “You better make it quick, because I won’t be able to help you if he catches us.”

I ran with it and didn’t waste a second. “I know you don’t agree with the camp. I know you don’t agree with the way it’s run. You wouldn’t risk your life for my sister repeatedly if you did.”

His gaze remained hard.

“Do you believe…that Fender can change?”

Subtle differences moved into his face, a softness he couldn’t fight.

“Because I think he can. I just…don’t understand why he is the way he is. If I knew…it would help.”

His eyes shifted behind me before he responded. “Yes.”

I inhaled a breath of relief, like Magnus had literally lifted a burned-down cabin off me. “Then can you talk to him—”

“I’ve tried.”

“Again—”

“I’ve tried more times than I can count.”

Disappointment hit me like a punch to the gut. It took me a second to recover. “Then why do you think he can change?”