“Why do you care about that ring so much?” Raze stiffens so obviously that even I can tell. I keep going, despite my better judgment. “You don’t have to tell me. I just mean... When Leira showed it off, it seemed...important?”

Raze shakes his head, taking a step back from me. I’ve tried so hard not to think about last night: about his arms holding me up as we limped into the forest, about the way he looked at me as the enchantment fell away, about the brief, horrible moment when his lips were on mine, about the way he rushed in to protect Isolde without a thought for himself. It all seemed almost like a dream, but when his eyes lock on mine, everything rushes back.

Then he looks away. It’s strange, not being the one to look away first. “You’ll think it’s silly.”

I thought I hated him, but I don’t. I just can’t stand him, with his secrets and his scheming and his smiles. And now, when I’ve finally started to allow him to get closer, he wants to back off. “No,” I say honestly. “I won’t.”

Raze looks like he’s seriously considering shifting into a hawk and flying away. Then he shrugs, looking back at me again. His eyes are almost gray in this light, dark and deep as murky water. “It belonged to my dad,” he mutters.

Belonged. I haven’t thought much about Raze’s parents, about his family beyond Leira, but of course he must have had one. I feel selfish for not considering that sooner or wondering why he never talked about them.

“What happened to them?” I blurt. Great job, Seelie, I think angrily at myself. Dig deeper into what is obviously a very painful past for him to discuss. That will make everything better.

Raze looks at me out of the corner of his eye, and he must decide that I’m doing my best, because he answers.

“They...died. When I was six. I don’t have anything else to remember them by.” Light glints off his ring. His face twitches, like his throat is going dry, and when he speaks again, his tone is low and pained. “It was right after I started shapeshifting. Leira was a distant cousin of my mother’s. She took me in, raised me, gave me everything I ever asked for.”

He scowls at the floor.

“At least, until she realized my magic wasn’t getting any stronger. She tried everything to coax my power from me—teachers, potions, enchantments. None of it made any difference. I’m just...weak. But Aunt Leira wasn’t satisfied with that explanation. So she...she...”

He’s still walking, faster now, like he’s trying to outrun the end of the sentence. I reach out and touch his arm lightly, and when he doesn’t pull away, I tug gently to slow him. We stop in a patch of yellow sunlight between stacks of books.

“She started locking me up. Forcing me in smaller and smaller cages. She said that if I really wanted to get out, then I could just change my shape into something small enough to slip through the bars. But I—” Raze’s hands squeeze into white-knuckled fists “—I couldn’t.”