My eyes sting, but I refuse to cry. He doesn’t deserve my tears.
Don stumbles to a halt. My heart threatens to break out of my chest.
“Leigh?” he asks, his voice rising.
Heat courses through my veins, causing my hands and arms to flex. This isn’t the man who would take me out for ice cream when my parents fussed over Fynn. That man is a myth. This man is a criminal, through and through.
I gesture to one of the empty chairs across from me. “Take a seat, Don.”
He doesn’t move, still gaping at me. One of the guards forces him into a chair. “I am so glad you finally came,” Don says as his guards leave.
Isolde shifts behind me. She’s the only guard allowed to witness this exchange. I’m not stupid enough to be alone with the Magician. There are still tricks up his sleeve.
“This isn’t a friendly visit,” I tell him before his attention traces my face to take in my disguise. I can see the wheels turning in his mind, trying to decipher my intentions.
“Still, you’re here. I have so many things I want to say to you, starting with ‘I’m sorry.’”
The pretty words hang between us, piercing like a lightning bolt. Too bad my father and brother are still dead.
My hands clench into fists. An apology won’t undo his crimes as Eos’s Magician, and it doesn’t overwrite the lengths to which he went to subjugate the Nebula by keeping the War Letters a secret. It can’t make up for the lies he told me to try and get me to give him my throne. The Epsilon started the First War, and he manipulated and killed his own family to keep it a secret.
“Am I supposed to forgive you?” I ask, my tone laced with venom.
He swallows. “Please. I’ve changed.”
My edged laughter causes a wince from him. “I trusted you. No, more than that. I loved you.” A sob thickens my throat, but I refuse to release it. I loved him. It’s the truth, and he spoiled his love for me entirely. Now, I cannot even say the words to the man who matters most to me. Wilder deserves it, but I am broken. This manbrokeme.
Don hangs his head, but I refuse to feel sorry for him. He’s still the architect of our family’s destruction, even now. I need to remember that.
“I am sorry, Leigh. Please, believe me,” he says. “I swear I never meant for Thayer to harm you. He was meant to takethe letters and bring them to me, but that’s it. Your father was working with Chiron. I was scared Nyx would turn against him and use the letters to instigate war. My goal was to maintain peace, but everything got out of hand. I see that now. I’ve had so much time to think, and I miss you, Leigh. I never meant to hurt you. Please, let me make it up to you.”
“You want to make it up to me?” I ask. He shifts, the magic-binding manacles around his wrists clinking against the desk. “Thayer almost killed me, too. If Wilder hadn’t found me, I would have bled out beside my father and Fynn on that pavement. Yet you want tomake it up to me?”
“I am so sorry. I had no idea you’d have your Emergence and Thayer would feel threatened.”
“So, it is my fault my father and brother are dead?” I sneer.
“No!”
“Their blood is on your hands. Not mine.”
I can feel my father and Aradia’s ghostly caresses, but they don’t speak. This is my fight. Not theirs.
Don sniffles. It is a pathetic sound. “I am repenting for my sins.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I snap. “I know you’re still pulling strings from down here. I know you’re still trying to take my throne.” The first tear falls. It trails down my cheek before landing on my lap. Fuck. I told myself I wouldn’t cry.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Don says. “I can’t do anything from in here.”
I laugh. “Don’t pretend you don’t know; you’re the one who told Stellan about Fynn. Now you’ve put my mother in a corner,again.”
Don blinks. “Wait, what?”
“She told me everything after Stellan published his article with the informationyoufed him.”
Don blinks again. “Leigh, I am at a loss here. Who is Stellan? The writer?”
I slap my hands on the table, causing Don to jump. “Stop lying! You know who he is, and you’ve been selling him information about Council members and our family to sow distrust. Thanks to you, people are questioning my rule. They’ve lost faith in their queen. Which I’m sure is exactly what you want.” I’m seething, heaving with breath, but Don’s face remains blank. Fury roils inside me like a volcano ready to erupt. “What did you expect to happen? That you’d tell Stellan the truth, make people doubt me, and put yourself on the throne as some savior of the people? News flash, uncle, you are in fucking prison!”
