“That night when I fell in with the Breeder, I wasn’t asking you that to annoy you,” she says softly. “I think some subconscious part of me was asking because I wonder where I sent her. I think maybe part of me died that day, too.”

I’ve spent the last ten years trying to forget everything about my many deaths, just for the sake of my sanity. For the first time, I wish I could remember something that might bring her comfort.

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember. It was just pain, darkness, then pain and light and I was back.” I take a deep breath and shake my head. “I’m so sorry that he did that to you. He’ll never do it again.”

She looks over her shoulder, like Rafe might be waiting there for her. “You don’t understand—he could control you. He could make you do the same thing. You have no idea how it feels.” Fresh tears stream down her cheeks. I hate seeing this brave woman scared out of her mind.

“Harlow, I’ll be damned if I let him control me, and he can’t kill me.”

She searches my face. “Because of⁠—”

“Yes, because of what I am. Because my parents have thought of the many ways that people could use their Divine blessings to harm me. Because, despite what Carter said to you that night in the holding cells, he compelled me to kill myself. Unlike other methods of death, it seems when I meet one magical end, that magic can’t be used on me again.”

Harlow trembles—a mixture of fear and sorrow coming off of her in waves. “I’m so sorry.”

I squeeze her shoulder. “The difference was consent, Harlow. I asked him to do that as a favor to my parents, who were sick with grief. Rafe took something from you.”

She wipes her eyes and extricates herself from my grip. “I need to move. I can’t think clearly here.”

The wind stirs her hair as she glances at the memorial and turns back toward the patio.

There are so many more questions pressing at my mind, but I’m afraid to ask. I rush to catch up with her, afraid to say anything else until we’re out of her parents’ domain. They’re out all day at various gatherings at the high houses, but they will be back in a few hours and they’re expecting us to have dinner with them. All I want to do is get her as far from here as possible.

We emerge from the garden, and Harlow walks across the patio and rips the back door open. It slams against the wall with a loud bang, but she just storms inside.

I can barely keep up with her as she turns down hallways until we finally end up in what looks like a study. There’s a large, ornately carved fireplace with a roaring fire and a painting of Harrick and Liza hanging above it. On the far side of the room, the faint glow of sunstones on the side patio casts shadows over a large wooden desk topped with crystal water glasses, a glass lantern, a stack of ledgers, and several unopened letters. Beside the deck is what looks like a three-dimensional model of the city. The gates are all marked, as are the fallback points for each quadrant.

Harlow paces back and forth. “I just needed one room that didn’t make me think of her. We never spent any time in here. It’s my father’s study.”

I stare at the painting of her parents. “Why didn’t your parents stop Rafe?”

I don’t mean to say it, but it slips out. I’m not even trying to drive a wedge between her and her family anymore. This is already above and beyond just some power struggle between our families.

“They weren’t home,” she says absently.

I frown. “They didn’t have guards who were tasked to protect you? Gaven?”

She pauses and cocks her head to the side, like she’s trying to remember. Slowly, the concentration on her face gives way to shock.

“Could he have compelled them and the guards?” I ask.

I have my suspicions, but I want Harlow to get there on her own. She’s already been through so much in these few short minutes, and I’m worried more hard truths will shatter the woman I thought unbreakable.

Harlow rubs the back of her neck. “I don’t think so. Rafe is powerful, but that would be a lot of people to overcome very quickly, and even so, Gaven was chosen because he had an immunity to Divine magic—” She blinks up at me with wild eyes as the revelation hits her. “He would have been immune to the compulsion.”

“Is he ever so far from you that he wouldn’t have realized Rafe was in the house?”

She shakes her head. “I think he was worried I would kill Rafe and start a war between our families, so he was always very aware of our interactions.” She presses a hand to her chest. “Gaven knew. He let it happen.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Does anything happen in this house your parents don’t allow? I have to imagine violence against one or both of their daughters could only happen if⁠—”

I fall silent at the recognition in her eyes.

“If they allowed it,” she whispers.

Her face morphs from wide-eyed shock to confusion, then is drawn down by grief, until it finally settles on anger. “How could they? Why would they? Aidia gave them access to Rafe—a way to keep tabs. Why would they give it up?” She rubs her temples. “Why would they let him hurt both of us?”

Her whole body is trembling, breaking under the weight of her rage.

“Tell me where it hurts. Tell me and I’ll take it away,” I say.

She tears across the study and shoves me so hard I hit the wall behind me. She glares up at me, her palms pressed to my scarred chest, her face a mix of fury and grief.

I know this feeling—the powerlessness, the anger clawing its way out. This is what I want from her. I need her to know this—that I am a safe place to be angry.

“You can’t,” she gasps.

“I have to try.”

Harlow presses a palm to her heart and tries to still her quaking body. “This is where it hurts,” she rasps. “I used to know how to endure. I could do it because Aidia did it too. But they gave her to that monster and now she is gone and it’s all my fault.”

The light has gone out of her eyes. She turns and shoves everything off her father’s desk. The fine set of crystal glasses and ornate lantern shatter on the floor. With a great heave, she flips the desk onto its side, then picks up the fireplace poker and starts to hit the mantel. Glass shards explode from the vases and expensive-looking statues placed there, and when the poker gets stuck in the portrait of her parents, she shreds it.

She starts to batter the desk, all the rage and hurt coming out in vicious swings of the iron poker.

“I will not be a good little soldier. I will not be a weapon. I will not be quiet. I will not be them!” Her voice is raw. Her rage is a life force.

She pounds a fist against her chest. “This is where it hurts. Here. And everywhere else and it will never stop.”

She turns and swipes the poker across the desk. It catches in the wood and slips from her hands, clattering on the floor.

The floor is covered in broken glass and the remnants of expensive, fragile things, but Harlow isn’t finished. She looks around the room, wildly searching for anything else to destroy.

I see the war in her. I see a monster who doesn’t want to spread the hurt around. Just like I see the woman who knows how easily she could tip over that edge and become the thing she fears.

If I don’t slow her down, she’s going to hurt herself, either on the shards on the floor or the explosiveness of her anger. I grab her shoulder, and she spins on me with her fist raised in the air.

She stills, looking at her hand like she’s surprised.

Slowly, I reach up and take her fist in my hand. She lets me take it, but when I thread my fingers through hers, she grips tightly.

She squeezes until my bones creak, like she wants to press her pain into me—like violence is the only language that will make me understand. And I want to take it. I want to drink down all that poison if it will keep her from feeling like she’s dying.