“We’ve been deleting various uploads of the video all morning, but it keeps surfacing,” Montes says.

“Why now?” I ask, my eyes traveling over him.

Three days ago, this man admitted to me how he stayed ageless and how the war came to be. I still can’t wrap my mind around how he can look at himself in the mirror every day, or why my heart hasn’t stopped aching for him.

Montes turns to look back at the screen. “We’ve destroyed numerous cells over the last several days.”

The cells I’d told the king about. So this was a direct result of my efforts.

“How bad is it?”

That vein in Montes’s temple pulses.

“You haven’t been able to completely stop the leak, have you?” I say. He’d been so sure.

That’s how kings fall. Hubris.

Montes glances away from the screen, piercing me with his gaze. It’s an explosive look, one full of vicious protectiveness. For all his wicked deeds, he doesn’t just care about himself. No, he cares fiercely about me too.

“It’ll be taken care of,” the king says. The edge in his voice makes me think more people will die.

I back out of the room and leave the king to his collusions. This isn’t my battle. It once was, but no longer. I’ve already surrendered.

Over the next week, Bedlam breaks out across the globe. The king isn’t able to suppress the footage of me, and it’s done exactly what the Resistance intended: sparked rebellion.

Uprisings pop up across continents, some more organized than others. The Resistance spearheads many of them, and they’re the most destructive. Provincial governments are demolished, the king’s research labs burned, armories ambushed. Reports suggest the group’s numbers have nearly doubled since the video leaked, and membership was already in the hundreds of thousands.

I rub my forehead, trying to focus on the files Nigel gave me a week ago. I sit out in front of the palace soaking up the morning sun as I flip through them.

I’ve never been more unsure of myself than I am now. A year ago, I knew exactly who I was and what I stood for. The king was the enemy. He was evil and he wreaked death and destruction.

Now I’m married to that very man, and he’s no longer so easily compartmentalized. The Resistance, whom I’d sided with for so long, is now the one perpetuating violence when the world’s finally found peace. Right and wrong are lovers; I can’t have one without the other.