My father puts his hands up, as if he’s afraid this will send me over the edge, and for a moment, I think it might, but instead, I realize I want someone to know. Someone who isn’t Jacobi or Natalie. Someone like my dad. Because, for Charon’s sake…I can’t do this on my own.

“My sixteen-year-old son’s…lover…from a past life reincarnated and just so happens to be the Eurydice.”

Never mind. This is the worst. I take it back—I don’t want him to know anything.

“What do you expect from me?” my father continues. “I knew what Roth would do when he found out, and I was right. You think I wanted my spoiled superior to use my son?”

“But…you could have told me!”

Or at least tried to warn me in subtle ways. Instead, all he does is make me feel inferior and keep me from my assignments…

Oh.

We stare at each other for a long moment. Then he says, “I guess it was too much to hope you’d keep your distance from the Eurydice, given she’s a human and you’re Valryn.”

There it is. I should have expected the blow. I should have been prepared for how bad it hurts, but I’m not.

Dad continues, “I understand why you have the instinct to protect her.”

But he doesn’t. Not really. Because I don’t.

“Forget that this is against the Order. What could you possibly know about someone you met less than two weeks ago?”

It’s not like I’m marrying her. I’m learning her. I might not know the material things—roses or lilies or no flowers at all, favorite music, movies, or books—but I know she loves the stars and wants to be an astrophysicist, all inspired by the love she has for her poppa. I know she grieves for him deeply, that if she lost anyone else, she would shatter. I want to protect her from that, because Anora might be the Eurydice, but she grew up human and is human, and even Valryn cannot escape pain.

Greater things connect us—horror and struggle and fear and love. I might never learn her in other ways, but I’ll know her in the ways that count.

“Dad…I can’t have this conversation right now.”

He doesn’t press, and I’m relieved. I feel like we have a truce, and I don’t want it to end so soon, even knowing at some point, he’s going to want to have that conversation with me. The one where he tells me I can’t see Anora.

Right now, I’m hoping he won’t tell me that.

“Where is she?”

“She’ll go before the Order soon.”

“Dad, she has a life outside this place, outside being the Eurydice. Keeping her here would be kidnapping her—”