Had he made me into something he could control, truly?
I pulled the knife from my scabbard and pointed the tip at the same hollow where my head seemed to settle when he carried me. “And if that weapon ends up at your throat?”
He did not step back. He did not reach for a blade of his own. His hands were at his sides, and his eyes were on mine, and his pulse was steady under the edge of the knife.
“Then the knife is at my throat. But together, we can remake this kingdom into what it was meant to be.” The gold of his eyes glowed in the dark, reminding me he was not mortal. Not like me. “Wife.”
The word landed like what it was: binding and intimate, a promise and a threat.
I held the knife where it was for a few heartbeats, our gazes on each other’s.
Then I lowered it. “Do you have any other secrets from me, Fear?”
The question sat between us in the low lamplight. His expression didn’t change, but he looked at me for a beat longer than the question would have required from an honest man.
“Yes.”
He took the time to pour us both a cup of spiced, milky tea from the pot on the brazier. I hadn’t asked for tea, but when he held it out, I took it anyway.
He let out a sigh that felt like a breath for a long time, his broad shoulders falling. “Tesa is alive.”
The words took a moment to assemble into meaning. “Ander’s Tesa.”
What moved through me first was a bright pulse of joy. She was alive. Ander could have his love restored.
“She’s been inside the queen’s household,” Fear said. “Working against her. Her memories have been partially destroyed by an enchantment.”
Darker understanding crushed that glimmer of joy. Where had she been? What had she gone through that she had not come home to Ander all these years?
“Where is she now? Is she still in the castle?” What if she was lost to the queen’s cruelty?
If Fear had been capable of guilt, what passed between us then might have been a guilty silence. There was a look on his face, slightly rueful. “She’s here. She is one of the Nightwalkers.”
The last of the relief curdled as the full shape of his latest deceit arrived, each piece landing after the last like a volley of arrows: Tesa was here. Ander was not. Ander had mourned her for years and mourned her still. If he knew she was alive, nothing would keep him from her.
“He doesn’t know.”
“No. She’s a Nightwalker.”
“You’ve known she was alive.” My anger was changing shape, finding a new edge. “You stood next to Ander and kept that secret, knowing she was alive.”
“Her memories are gone.” He held my gaze, steady, as if he had already held this argument with himself, and he was well-prepared to argue it with me. “The enchantment ate through her mind. If Ander had known she was alive and then met her and she hadn’t known him…. I was not going to do that to him.”
“That’s not your choice.”
He scoffed. “You are trying to take a moral high ground despite the pain you would inflict on your friend. Ander is my enemy, and I am trying to be merciful.”
“Ander is only your enemy when you are a fool. You only see him as your enemy because you are a fool.”
His gaze narrowed. He let the insult pass without comment but left time for me to admire his graciousness. “The knife might restore her memories. After she is freed from the queen’s enchantments, then we decide.”
We decide. As if he ever wasn’t the one deciding. “Do you want to keep this a secret for Ander’s sake or because you need his help to bring the other clans in line?”
Fear’s lips ticked up, reluctantly pleased despite the accusation. “You’ve grown so clever. It can be both, can it not?”
Of course. I hadgrown so clever. Under his wicked tutorship. He would make a gift of the very thing he had forced me to develop. “You must tell him.”
“I will. Once we use the knife and see that she is still Tesa.”
