I was Cyrus Raynoff, heir to the first council seat—if that even meant anything anymore. The old council was gone, dissolved. My father was leading an emergency governing body now. Elections were coming. Everything was changing.
I didn’t even know what I was heir to anymore.
But I knew what I was. Someone who didn’t share. Someone who didn’t do complicated relationship dynamics. Someone who sure as hell didn’t fall in love with women who belonged to other people first.
Except Marigold had never felt like she belonged to anyone but herself.
And that was the problem. The thought of her in Keane’s arms, responding to Elio’s touch the way she’d responded to mine, made something violent and possessive claw at my chest.
Love is a leash, my father had said after my mother died. The enemy finds what you love and uses it against you. That’s how you lose.
My father had said that when I was six—old enough to understand, old enough to spend the next fourteen years believing him.
But he’d been wrong. I’d watched him realize it just a month ago as he broke down when he learned the truth about my mother. Loving her hadn’t made him weak. Losing her and believing the lies about how she died? That’s what had weakened him.
He’d spent the last month fighting for what she had believed in, leading the emergency council, and hunting the people who’d killed her.
Love hadn’t been his leash. It was his reason.
So why couldn’t I let myself believe that too?
Footsteps on the stairs. Voices—Keane’s measured tones, Elio’s lighter laugh, and underneath it all, her voice. Marigold, talking about something mundane while sounding happy and comfortable and home.
The door opened.
I turned.
She stood in the doorway between Keane and Elio like that’s where she belonged. Her honey-blonde hair hung loose around her shoulders instead of pulled back, and her dark eyes found mine. For one second, I couldn’t lock it down.
Heat exploded through the room. The leather sofa caught fire behind me. The temperature spiked twenty degrees in three seconds.
She flinched.
Good. Let her see what she did to me.
Scout poked his skeletal head out of her jacket pocket, chattering at Ember. My familiar ruffled his feathers in response—apparently the only one in the room capable of normal social interaction.
Hi, she said softly.
Just hi. Like we were friends and nothing more.
I tried to respond, tried to say something—anything—that would make this less awkward. But the words wouldn’t come. Because standing there, watching her look at me with those careful, uncertain eyes, I realized she didn’t know what to say either.
We’d left things unfinished, and a month apart hadn’t made them any clearer.
How was Albany? I managed finally. My voice came out rougher than intended.
Good. Complicated. She took a small step into the room, staying closer to Keane and Elio, like they were safety and I was… something else. How were the holidays here?
Long. The word tasted bitter. Quiet.
Keane and Elio exchanged a glance—too knowing. They’d felt it. Of course they had. I’d been broadcasting my emotional disaster for weeks.
The temperature spiked another few degrees. Sweat prickled at the back of my neck despite the January cold outside.
Cyrus— Marigold started.
I need to train.
