Something like genuine relief flickered across Callan’s features, quickly smoothed over with his usual arrogance. “I’m surprised he let you come here without him,” he said. “Surprised he’d let you walk into this alone.”
“He didn’t ‘let’ me do anything,” I said. “He trusts me to fight my own battles. Even when he’s afraid of what it might cost.”
“And I don’t?” he challenged.
“You’re here because you’re afraid of what it will costyouif you don’t help,” I said. “That doesn’t make you a coward. It just means you’re not doing this for me.”
He stared at me for a long moment, something like hurt moving behind his eyes. Then he blew out a breath and leaned back against the shelves, fingers drumming lightly on a wooden box.
Outside, a cart rattled past. Somewhere in the distance, a bell chimed the late hour.
“You know,” he said finally, voice quiet, “in another life, I might’ve been good for you.”
“In another life,” I said, “you might’ve been good. Full stop.”
He winced, but he didn’t deny it. And I knew what he was thinking as sure as if he’d asked it aloud.
“I can’t marry you,” I said, softer now. “Not to stop her. Not to save you. Not for anything. If I tie myself to you, I become a tool all over again. For your court. For your council. For every fae who thinks a queen’s power comes from who she stands beside instead of who she is.”
“And Rydian?” he asked. “Is that different?”
“Yes,” I said simply, ignoring the heartbreak in that one word.
It was absolutely different because with Rydian, I’d never be his.
Callan swallowed. Looked away. When he met my eyes again, his were bright, but his voice was steady.
“I’ll make sure no one stops you from walking through.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he muttered. “If this goes poorly, we’ll all be dead, and she’ll make Frostwights out of our bones.”
I didn’t let myself picture that.
He stepped past me, toward the curtain, then paused. “Aurelia.”
“Yes?”
“If you survive this,” he said, “and if by some miracle I do too… what then?”
“Then we keep fighting,” I said. “Until she’s stopped. Until my people wake. Until this realm remembers what it is to be free.”
“And us?” he asked, almost lightly. “Is there an ‘us’ in that future somewhere? Even as allies? As friends?”
I considered him.
The boy who’d tried to save me by caging me. The king now risking his crown to give me a shot at saving something bigger than both of us.
“There could be,” I said honestly. “If you keep choosing the realm over your pride.”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “That sounds exhausting.”
“It will be,” I said. “But you might start to like yourself before it’s done.”
He looked like he wanted to say something else. Instead, he nodded, squared his shoulders, and slipped back through the curtain.
Chapter Forty-Three
