In the meantime, I can only cling to the belief that he can't manipulate their feelings for him if they don't know the truth. He can't guilt them into confessing the status of Eli's health if they aren't aware themselves. And judging by his past behavior, I don't doubt that he will try to get to them somehow. As much as I'd like to insist that I’m in control of everything, I can only control what I can see.

Abel has ways of gaining access to them. There are a thousand considerations to be made. He could have a rat in my own household staff for all I know. The maids, the groundskeeper, the cook... even the guards. If he has turned members of the Society against the establishment, there is no telling who he might convince to help him with his cause. It was his word, after all, his evidence, The Tribunal used to excommunicate well-established members. Abel is a manipulator of the highest order, and I can't trust anyone to be one-hundred-percent loyal. Marco and Antonia are the only ones. And the truth is, if Abel wanted to get a message to Ivy through someone, he’d find a way to do it.

It is with this tiresome awareness that I stop by my office and retrieve the small black box resting on top of my desk. As I walk up to the second landing and down the hall to my bedroom, pausing outside, I stare down to examine it, wondering if this is the right decision.

I'm aware nothing I can do will bring her comfort right now, but this foolish hope still lives within me. I unlock the door using the code and quietly step inside.

Ivy is curled up in bed, staring into nothingness. She doesn't look at me when I approach, or even when I sit on the edge beside her. Her tears have all dried up, but the pain has not. It's visceral, a living, breathing thing inside this room. I know because I feel it in my chest too. What she feels, I feel.

"Ivy?" I reach out hesitantly, stroking her arm.

She doesn't flinch or pull away, but I think I would rather that than the emptiness I see in her eyes.

I bring her hand to my lips and kiss it, and her fingers twitch in my grasp.

"I have something for you."

I slide the box onto the nightstand, and she glances at it briefly before her eyes flicker shut then open again. I don't know what to do. How to fix this for her.

“You can open it when you feel up to it,” I tell her. “It’s something very special to me, and I thought, perhaps it was time you saw it.”