But I know what I saw when he waved the tent flap open like it was nothing. Power exists in him still.

Finn’s eyes are downcast, landing on my palms, on the bruises and scrapes still healing there from last week’s fall outside of Saint Bosco’s.

He goes very still, his breath catching in his throat.

His brows furrow, then slowly, so slowly, he extends a hand, his outstretched fingers nearly brushing mine before I pull back, as if snapped out of a trance.

“Your hands,” he says quietly, still not meeting my eye. “Did someone hurt you?”

“I…,” I begin. “Why on earth would you care if they did?”

“Who hurt you?” he asks, deadly serious.

“Are we asking questions now? How’d you get your magic back?” I snap.

He sucks on his teeth and pulls his hand back from mine reluctantly. “Another thing I’m afraid we’d disagree on.”

“Did you steal it, Finn? Did you trick some other poor, lovesick girl the same way you tricked me?”

He sighs. There’s something exhausted in it. “Lovesick? I didn’t trick you.”

“You did trick me! Revising the past doesn’t make it true!” I didn’t want to resort to yelling. I swallow my anger, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction out of me. He’s already had so much of me. He doesn’t get more.

He said in his letter so long ago that what he was building, he was building for us. Is this whole camp for me? This tent? The narrow bed in the corner, illuminated by a single lantern?

“Why are you here in the first place? I thought you were supposed to be the fancy leader of the Sons of Saint Druon. Wasn’t that the point of your whole little plot? This seems like quite the downgrade.”

A dark look crosses his face. “I don’t associate with the Sons anymore.”

“How lucky for them. Probably increased all their life spans by decades.”

He’s looking at me like he sees right through me. “I missed you, too.” Then he smiles, smug and sure. “I knew you’d find me.”

Anger rises in my throat, hot and fast. “I didn’t find you. We were brought here by Pascal. Which I assume is your doing.”

“It isn’t,” he says simply, undeterred by my anger. “Perhaps the universe just wanted us together.”

I don’t know much about the universe, but I hope it doesn’t hate me enough to want this for me.

Get in and get out. I don’t have time to waste by arguing with him. “I’m not here to flatter you. I’d prefer if we never spoke again. But I fear I have no choice. There is an urgent matter.”

The worried look that crosses his face is genuine. “Are you all right?”