Derrick stepped away from me. “I was so excited to meet her. After everything you had said about her in your letters and what I had heard from her brother…”
He raked his fingers through the roots of his hair and headed for the fireplace. “Well-read. Witty. Imaginative. Trustworthy.She was such a good friend to you and I thought once you and I were married…she would be my friend too.”
In a blink, his gaze turned wrathful and speared the portrait above the mantle. “Butheruined it!”
Anders’s coronation portrait had replaced Alastar the Wise above the fireplace. The Anders Hyton in the portrait was thirty years old, handsome, and confident—completely unrecognizable from the man I had known and feared.
When did Alastar finally consume Anders?
I shook away the thought and focused on the present. Maybe reconciling Derrick and Brietta would be what would save him. I could prime him to sign Brietta’s planned reformation and she would be so happy that she would want to be Derrick’s friend. She could halt Alastar’s destruction while I saved Riyan.
I took a step toward Derrick and forced a smile. “I think if you just heard her out—”
“He ruined us, Serafina!” Derrick turned around and his pained blue eyes met mine. “Heruinedus!”
I gripped my hands and held my breath. The fire crackled behind Derrick as his scream echoed around the room.
Derrick’s face softened. “I am so sorry, Serafina.” He dipped his head and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Everything is slipping and I do not know why.”
Because he was waging war against the monster in his mind…and he had no idea.
I placed my hand on his arm. “Derrick, it is all right to admit that being the Duke is hard.”
He barked out a laugh so loud that I jumped back. “Hard? Serafina, this is my life!” His eyes gleamed with something between madness and anguish. “Being an Alastar is mylife!”
He gestured to the portraits around us. “Every Hyton son has been the same way. You are either the Duke of Lycaster or you are dead!”
My eyes danced along the cold faces of the Dukes’ portraits—each of them the winners of the Alastar trials, each one with blood staining their hands.
Derrick sank onto the nearby couch. “I cannot change it. I cannot sulk about it. This is just my life.”
The defeat that spread across his face pained my heart. Even if my affinity was healing, I had no idea what I could really fix.
At the very least, I could make my friend feel better about the life he never got to choose.
I sat next to him on the couch and rested my cheek against his shoulder. “Remember when I wrote to you that I loved roasted hazelnuts? And then suddenly Annalisa got tins of roasted hazelnuts in her parcels even though she hated them?”
I looked up through my lashes and caught his smile. “I told her the sweet shop included the tins for free so she would keep tossing them onto your bed.”
My smile grew bigger. “Remember when I used to tell you all the Ashmore gossip because you were bored?”
His nose wrinkled as he let out a quiet laugh. “It was better than any theatre.”
I wrapped my hands around his arm. In the silence, we said more than we ever could on parchment. He was there for me and I was there for him, regardless if we were two schools apart or two provinces apart.
If he knew that, maybe he would not shatter.
“No matter what happens, we are still Midnight and Birdie,” I said. “Remember that when the burden of your life is so heavy.”
I let go of his arm so he could turn toward me. His eyes were soft—even Alastar was quiet within him.
I gently brushed a stray curl out of his face. “Think of girlish gossip instead of sneers at court. Feel the threaded stars under your fingers instead of the weight of the crown. Taste roasted hazelnuts instead of the bitter tang of Cupid’s Blood.”
Derrick’s brow suddenly hardened. “How do you know what Cupid’s Blood tastes like?”
My stomach dropped. No…no!How could I have let that slip? He could not,could notknow the truth of the Darkest Night.
I would tell the truth how it benefited me—how it would benefit all of us. “I…remember when Brietta was poisoned at Annalisa’s ball. She grimaced right after tasting that oddly purple wine—”
