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“It’s my story,” I say softly.

“ ‘A love of Fate, ordained, written in the stars,’ ” he repeats the words of the story. “That’s how magic is repaired.”

I nod. Just a few hours ago, this story would have felt like hope. It would have felt like a gift. Now it feels like a noose. But that doesn’t make it untrue.

“ ‘Light and Dark, once torn, would be mended,’ ” I quote. “What’s it talking about?”

Lonan hands the book back to me, sighs, and reclines against the wall. I watch as he leans his head back and removes his glasses to clean them on the tail of his shirt while he closes his eyes. “You’ve been fed propaganda about Imaelhain your entire life. It’s difficult to undo it in a manner of minutes. But here is my best attempt.” He replaces his glasses and then focuses, eyes burning darkly, on me. “You were taught that Imaelhain loves the Dark, that is true. But you’ve also been told it makes war against the Light. That’s a lie.

“Once, magic was not divided between Light and Dark. Both were wielded, blended, valued. Logic, reason, order, creation, along with passion, feeling, chaos, and destruction. Neither was good. Neither was evil. They just were.”

“How can destruction not be evil? How can chaos?” I think of what we’ve endured tonight. How can he say that all this is anything other than evil?

“This is the doing of the Ridding. It’s meant to villainize the Dark. But it doesn’t have to be that way. It once wasn’t. The King of Imaelhain wants to heal magic, bring the Dark and Light back together.”

“The King of Imaelhain being . . .”

He nods. “Your godfather.”

One of so many truths revealed by the trial, but arguably the most consequential. “You and my godfather have been teaching me to wield the Dark for years. Did you think I’d turn traitor against the country my father died to protect? Just hop over the mountains after graduation and help you both destroy Gault?”

He grimaces. “Neither of us wants to destroy Gault.”

I scoff. So many secrets. So many lies. “They call you the Great Nightmare. How many lives have those slippery shadows of yours taken?”

His eyes darken. “I trust your godfather. I follow his orders.” I note that that is not an answer.

“What is he to you?” And that is a question I’ve held back for years. I am Van Asten’s goddaughter, the only child of his late best friend. But Lonan? He was just some boy, plucked from an orphanage and then given private tutoring with the preeminent meiga in all of Gault.

“My teacher.”

I huff again, crossing my arms and looking away from him. “That’s all? He’s not giving just anyone private tutoring. What makes you so special?”

“Other than my royal blood? Enormous talent.” His lips curl into a self-satisfied grin. Saints, it makes me want to hit him. Or kiss him again. Perhaps both. “Hand me that book back a moment.” I offer it to him with a look of ire that he ignores. He flips to the last page. He pauses for a long moment. “What?” I finally ask.

He shakes his head. “I’m trying to read this in a way that doesn’t mean what I think it means.”

“And what do you think it means?”

“That for magic to be healed, for the war to end, you have to remain bonded to Galvin.”

We are both quiet then, the silence stretching far too long between us.

“It’s just a story,” he says thickly.

But I know neither of us believes that.

“ ‘Bound in the Dark, united in the Light . . . chosen . . .’” He reads the last, cut-off line from the story, then lifts his head, giving me a curious look. “Vesper, have you ever been stargazing?”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

My godfather kept constellations of secrets. How naive was I to think I knew all of them?

King of Imaelhain, Kingdom of Dark. Did my father know? When the two of them would take me riding? When he sat at our dinner table or shared a bottle of brandy by the fire?

It’s him I want to subject to the Ridding right now—force him to bare his secrets. But we still don’t know where he is.

Break the bloodbond. Kill Galvin to save our friends . . . and before he hurts more people. Survive. Those were our goals. But what if breaking the bond and killing the prince mean magic can’t be healed? The rift will remain, Light and Dark divided, and the war will continue.