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For once, I didn't care.

The bond had held. Kaelen had not meant the rejection, and the Council of Iron had just watched their own ritual prove it.

A rejection spoken falsely binds nothing, the Council's records had said. And the bond endures.

Kaelen looked down at the light between us and then back at me.

For once, there was nothing guarded in his expression. I could see love, fear, grief, and relief without having to guess what he was trying to hide.

He opened his hand.

The knife struck the stone table, slid across the cloth, and fell from the dais with a hard clatter.

No one moved to pick it up.

Kaelen turned toward his father.

Aldric remained composed, though one hand closed around the opposite wrist, in the same place he had gripped mine on the dance floor.

His eyes moved from Kaelen to the unbroken thread between us and finally settled on me.

I had torn myself out of his hands. I had saved Silas instead of obeying him. Now his son had dropped the knife rather than surrender the bond.

Whatever Aldric had expected from tonight, this had not been it.

Kaelen walked past him, descended the dais, and continued down the long aisle between the silent rows of students.

He left through the great doors without looking back.

I remained at the altar.

The knife lay on the steps behind me. The Council sat above me. Three hundred masked faces remained turned in my direction while I stood there in a ruined dress, with blood on my legs and tears drying on my face.

The bond still hummed beneath my breastbone, pulling insistently toward the doors Kaelen had just walked through.

Then the candles flared back to full brightness.

Behind me, I heard someone breathe out.

I turned.

Delphine Marrow was standing exactly where she had been all night, a pace behind the stone table, dressed in white and holding herself with her usual precision. But one of her hands had risen to her chest.

Her eyes were closed.

The breath leaving her seemed to empty something she had been carrying for years. For one brief moment, her face showed nothing but relief.

Then she opened her eyes, realized I was watching, and looked away.

The Hall broke into noise.

Envoys rose from their seats. Wardens bent their heads together. Fenhall erupted behind me.

Aldric remained still.

By the time I looked at him again, both of his hands were folded behind his back. He wasn't watching the doors his son had gone through.

He was watching me.