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Her chest contracted painfully. He meant to sit in this carriage and wait for them. She pictured the squadron surrounding it, sabers drawn.

"No."

"That was not a proposal."

Louise wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. Her fingers had steadied. She shrugged off her coat, the damp wool dragging over her shoulders before falling across the seat.

Napoleon watched her, brows stitched together.

She reached past him and took his coat. It smelled of smoke, horse, and the road. Louise drove her arms through the sleeves. The cloth settled beyond her wrists, broad across her shoulders, the famous shape known across Europe swallowing her own.

His expression grew thunderous. "I forbid you."

"There's no other way," she said, and her voice came out steady.

As the coat settled, she felt something shift inside her. The letters, the years of waiting, the path that had led her here—all of it arranged itself in a new order. She saw the choices she had made, the ones she had nearly made, the line she had almost crossed in that ballroom.

This was not the same.

Her gaze moved over his face, the distant figure resolving into the man she would leave behind. The line of his mouth, the set of his eyes, the fatigue across his brow—she fixed each detail in memory.

Then she shifted closer and put clumsy hands around him. One arm went around his shoulders too high, the other caught awkwardly at his back. She, who could place every part of her body to music, could not coordinate this simple act.

He stilled beneath her touch, and his arms remained at his sides. She pressed her cheek against his chest. If he had been carved from the same stone as every statue raised in his honor, she would still have taken this much, as long as she could embrace her father once in her life.

But then his arms came around her, and he exhaled against her hair. Louise's eyes closed. All her life, she had given him her loyalty out of a desperate need to be recognized by him, to be loved by him. As if loyalty could be a currency. But loyalty didn't buy love. She realized now, on a dusty road, that it was the other way around. And now, she felt recognized by him, perhaps even a bit loved, and she was ready to give him her loyalty for free.

"I would never ask this of you. Not of my own daughter."

"I know," she said, the pressure in her chest too high, and reached out for his hat. "And that is why I'm doing it."

Louise pushed out of the carriage and crossed to the back. Napoleon's horse turned his head slightly, bringing one dark eye to her.

The sergeant moved ahead of her, already reaching for the reins.

"He'll not like you much at first. He doesn't like anyone much."

"What is his name?" she asked, gathering her hair high and twisting it tight at the crown of her head. Then she pulled Napoleon's hat down over it.

"Marengo."

After one of her father's most significant battles. The one in which he consolidated his power. She hoped Marengo, the horse, would be just as swift.

The sound of hooves again—closer now.

"Now," the sergeant said. "Up. He'll carry you. If he believes you belong there."

"And if he doesn't?"

The sergeant gave a short breath. "You'll know soon enough."

She settled into the saddle, and the horse shifted beneath her.

The road stretched ahead, pale under the waning light. Fields opened on either side, broken by hedges. No woods to hide in, no shadows. Just flat ground where pursuing riders could easily cut her off.

"The Emperor used to do that. Look past where he was," the sergeant said. "Like he'd already gone ahead of the rest of us."

The hooves were close now. A rhythm gathering behind the trees.