She is going to lie down in his bed and spread her legs and bear his children and never think of you again.

You will be left to rot in this empty cage, alone and forgotten.

Sunlight warms my cheeks as I stalk across the grounds. It’s only when I scrub at them with the sleeve of my dress that I realize they are wet.

I pause, staring down the tearstained fabric.

“I’m a damn fool,” I whisper.

A bird chirps at me from a nearby hedge as if in agreement.

“Oh, fuck you, too.”

The bird flies away, leaving me perilously alone with my thoughts.

If I’m feeling like this … I cannot imagine what Kiki is feeling.

Worry cuts through my anger, sharp as a knife. She doesn’t want this. I know she doesn’t. Marrying Sebastian, moving into the viceroy’s villa—that is not the life she imagined. It is not the life we imagined. When we spoke of our future, it was always one in which we’re together. I cannot picture my life without her. I don’t want to. I don’t know what that would even look like. Would the baron still want me here, after she left? Would I still be welcome? Would this still be my home?

I glance back at the villa. It looks so different during the day. The walls are a soft shade of pale yellow, like sand. The red shingles on the roof make it look a bit like a stonework sunset. In the courtyard, a servant beats out a rug, sending clouds of dust puffing up into the air.

I cannot go back in there. Not after storming away from the table like a child who hasn’t gotten their way.

You are a fool, I tell myself. A shameless, selfish fool.

All I could think of was myself when I should have been thinking of her. My feet feel welded to the paved stone of the courtyard. I have to find Kiki. This much I know. But if I do, we will talk about what has just transpired and what will transpire, and I do not know if I am strong enough for that.

A world without Kiki in it is not a world I have any interest in inhabiting.

Go, that tiny, nigh imperceptible voice nestled at the back of my skull whispers. It’s my voice of reason. I’ve done a fair fine job of ignoring it for the past seventeen years, but maybe there’s a first time for everything. Find her.

I pause, my feet at the very edge of the cobbles of the courtyard.

It’s not that I don’t know where she is.

I know exactly where to find her.

I just don’t know if I should.

Go, you fool, says that voice. You absolute buffoon.

And so … I go.