I told him this, and for some reason, the smile that twitched at his lips made my heart ache.

“I recall,” he said softly. “It was the first time I saw you smile since I had brought you here.”

“I didn’t remember that part.”

“I never forgot it.”

I thought of what it had been like to fly with Raihn—even under such awful circumstances, still so freeing and exhilarating.

“Why didn’t you ever do it again? Take me flying?”

The smile faded. “The last thing I wanted was for you to think you could and start throwing yourself off of balconies.”

Because it was always about protecting me. Always.

As if he, too, had the same thought, he said, “It never gets…” His voice trailed off, like the words grew too big or complex to fit into syllables. His eyes went far away. His steps even slowed.

A spike of concern. “Vincent?”

His eyes returned, blinked, fell to mine.

“I can’t take credit for everything that you’ve become, Oraya. Even if sometimes I wish I could. But if I’m responsible for just one small piece of that, it will have been the greatest accomplishment of my life.”

We both had stopped moving, and I was grateful for it, because I would have tripped over my feet in pure shock.

He had never, ever spoken this way to me. Not once. Not ever.

“In desperate times, one thinks about all the things they haven’t said. And yesterday, when I saw you fall, I realized that perhaps I had never said that to you. It occurred to me that perhaps you didn’t know—that you did not know how much I—”

Vincent, the Nightborn King, the man who had never met a threat he could not defeat, seemed to bow beneath the words he struggled to choke out. “It was important for me to tell you that. That’s all.”

My lips parted, but I didn’t know what to say.

Sometimes people would call me Vincent’s pet, as if I was some passing distraction or source of amusement. And though I never questioned that he loved me, in his own way, sometimes I would still wonder. He had lived my lifetime ten times over. He was more than three hundred years old, and I had only been a part of that for less than twenty years.

The wave of warmth I felt at his words dimmed quickly to cold fear.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “What happened?”

Because that was the only reason why he would talk like this. If something awful was about to happen or had already.

But he just shook his head and swept me back into our dance steps. “Nothing. I’ve just become a sentimental old man. And I look forward to the day I don’t have to worry about outliving you.”

A streak of brightness over his shoulder caught my eye—a familiar form I would now know anywhere, even from across the room. Raihn was leaving through the doors that led to the patio, wearing a black silk jacket with a deep violet sash that hung down his back, his hair unbound in those messy red-black waves. I only glimpsed him before he was gone.

I brought my attention back to Vincent quickly, but not quickly enough. He’d noticed my distraction. He gave me a half-smile as the music faded, then swelled again.

“One more song,” he said, quietly, “and then I’ll let you go, my little serpent.”

My chest tightened with a swell of emotion I couldn’t place. Eerily similar, perhaps, to grief. The strange sensation that something existed here, in this dance, that I didn’t want to relinquish—a sense that once I let this moment slip away, it would be gone forever.

It was a silly thought. I didn’t know why it crossed my mind.

Still, I slid my hand back into his. This time, I took the first step. “One more song,” I agreed.

The night was hot. By the time I wandered to the patio, sweat slicked my skin, and the humidity outside did little to cool it. When our next dance ended, Vincent had stepped out of his role as my father and stepped back into the role of the Nightborn King, ruler of a wartime nation. He was commandeering and serious as he wandered off to Jesmine, speaking with her in a hushed, hurried voice—the kind that I knew better than to eavesdrop on.

Gardens surrounded the church, sprawling even though it was in the center of the inner city, where space came at a premium—and it was doubly extravagant, because in the House of Night, water was even more rare. But what didn’t our goddess deserve? Nothing was more important than Nyaxia, and Nyaxia deserved the most stunning gardens on the continent.

Well, practicality aside, she certainly got them. Silver and blue flowers spread before me in blankets of color. It was so disgustingly beautiful it just seemed excessive, all of it immaculately shaped and pruned and weeded and watered. Marble tile paths circled the clusters of greenery in functionally impractical but artistically beautiful designs. From above, they would shape the sigil of the House of Night.

Figured. They’d create something for her that only she, and they, could appreciate.

Movement to the left caught my eye. A cluster of silver stood among the bushes at a neighboring path—all dressed in deep red. I recognized Angelika immediately. It was impossible not to. She wore a draped gown of deep red fabric—sleeveless, showing off her sculpted muscles—with her silver hair falling down her back in a braid. Beside her was Ivan. Both of them had their heads bowed in serious conversation with a third figure, whose back was to me.

That figure, as if sensing my stare, turned to look over his shoulder.

Recognition speared me.

The man I’d spoken to that night by the river. The man who had given me the cigarillos. He was Bloodborn. Standing next to the other House of Blood contestants, it seemed so wildly obvious, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it before.

He lifted his hand dismissively to Angelika and Ivan in a way that made it clear that not only was he Bloodborn, he was also powerful—because Angelika, the type of person who seemed like she didn’t take orders from anyone, fell back to the rest of the party without another word.

“You did it yet again,” the man said as he approached me. Now that I knew to listen for it, I could hear the House of Blood accent—so faint, like he’d stomped it out over the course of decades, reducing it to just the hint of a melodic lilt beneath each word. “You won me quite a lot of money. But I’m afraid after that display, the odds against you won’t be quite as favorable to your few believers. Shame. Plenty of benefit in being underestimated.” He lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “I should have brought you more cigarillos. I’m afraid I’m all out.”

My eyes slid to him. I let them rest there for a long moment, taking him in now that I was seeing him in the light. He looked Bloodborn in every sense. His eyes, the pupils slightly slitted against the lantern light, held those telltale strings of crimson and gold. The red marks at his throat lingered just beneath the edge of his collar, which was high and stiff in burgundy fabric of the traditional House of Blood style, simple and tailored. Before I hadn’t been able to tell if his hair was blonde or silver, and now I realized that it was both—ashy blond-gray with shocks of near-white.

The corner of his mouth tightened.

“It’s a little insulting to be stared at that way. But then, I suppose that’s often your reality, isn’t it?”

“Just wondering how I missed the fact that you’re Bloodborn.”

“Ah. You’re right. We shared such a lovely moment, and yet I never properly introduced myself to you.” He extended his hand. “Septimus, of the House of Blood.”

I didn’t take it. Instead, I stepped back to compensate for the way he had leaned closer, which he seemed to find amusing. He withdrew his hand—unshaken—and slipped it into his pocket. “I see. You don’t take an empty hand. Smart. Did your father teach you that?”