“Yes, he is.” Bastiaan tucked the paper back in his pocket. “And I’m deeply thankful for your offer to write the queen for help.”

“Yet you’d rather have a wish.” I wanted him to admit it. To reveal that was the whole reason he plucked me out of the hedgerow by the schloss.

“If you had the ability to give one so easily, then obviously that would make things simpler. But you haven’t offered one. I trust you have a reason. I’ve not spent much time with you, Myrthe, but it’s been enough to glimpse your heart.”

My anger receded long enough to allow in other considerations. He had an order to capture me in his pocket. He’d known I was the Wishtress this whole time yet never asked about it. Never asked for a wish. Never pressured me. He even left me at Sven’s camp—let me go on my way—without bringing it up.

Even in this conversation I was the one to reveal my Talent.

I didn’t know what to do with this . . . courtesy. This obvious show of respect for who I was as a person. My defenses dropped.

I stepped closer to him, though I wasn’t sure why. To show I was hearing him? Maybe because this was the safest I’d ever felt—in the presence of a man sent to hunt me. A man who knew my secret and didn’t see it as a tool.

He received my closeness with a mixture of sadness and understanding—like he knew the struggles that came with hiding a Talent. He lifted his hand to my face and I sucked in a breath, tensing for his touch—ready for his touch.

His finger brushed my eyelashes ever so softly, then traced the path of my eyebrow. “Right here,” he said gently. “Your Talent Mark. It’s a single eyelash. White as snow with flickers of silver.”

“Oh.” The only word my pounding heart would allow to escape. I had a Talent Mark? I had a Talent Mark!

Bastiaan—a man who had once been a stranger and was now something so tenuously welcoming—had noticed this small detail about me in less than a handful of days knowing me.

No one else ever saw it. Because no one else ever saw me.

His hand returned to his side, but neither of us stepped back. I wanted to give him a wish right then. Ten wishes. A hundred. My breathing hitched as memory of my curse speared my mind. I took an abrupt step backward as the comfort fled.

This acceptance he offered was based off a half-knowing. While it gave me a moment of peace, reality brought me sharply back to the half-frozen forest.

He didn’t know what I’d done to my own parents or Coralythe’s sons.

I cleared my throat. “I’d best write that letter to Anouk.”

“Thank you, Myrthe.”