I’ve never seen anything like it.

The pride on Henry’s face is endearing. Much as I loathe him, I respect this sincerity. He loved his sister, but that love means the kind of grief that endures. That grief might be the thing that gets me killed. I need to be careful. If he brought me here, it’s because he wants a glimpse at how I’m feeling.

I watched Aidia learn to go from small glamours and appearance changes to freestanding illusions as large as changing the entire facade of our family estate. It’s difficult to learn to use that skill in new ways—only the most Divine-blessed can do it—and that was just for one type of blessing.

Looking at Holly Havenwood’s art leaves me breathless.

“It interprets all feelings?” I ask.

“They all show different aspects of a person. This one is the strongest emotion at the moment.” He nudges me to the right, in front of a narrow rectangular piece. “This one shows desires.”

The painting looks vaguely like a sunset over the mountains. It has a pulsing energy that brushes against my skin when I step closer. A beat thrums through me, and suddenly I feel like I’m back in the ceremony room, Henry looming over me, the ache of pleasure beating through my blood and⁠—

I step back, out of reach of the painting. All the colors have bled away from the center, leaving a black abyss and a set of dark blue eyes looking back at me. Henry’s eyes.

“Bleeding woods,” I grumble.

Henry chuckles in my ear. “Glad to know I made enough of an impression that you associate me with desire, lovely.”

If I react, it will just give him more satisfaction, so I hold perfectly still, trying to will my desire into anything else.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

His question snaps me back to the present moment.

I glance over my shoulder at him. He’s too close. This intimacy isn’t a performance like last night. That was meant to convince everyone else. This performance is meant to convince me, but I’m not that easy.

“I told you, everything you did was fine. I’m a little sore, but not in a bad way.”

His gaze heats, and he licks his lips. “I healed all of your bruises while you slept.” He slides his hand up higher so his knuckles brush the underside of my breast. “I told you that you’d still feel me today, but I meant how is your head?”

Warmth creeps through my blood, but I refuse to let him ruffle me. “It’s fine.”

“No pain since the well?” he asks.

“No pain.” It’s only been a day, but I’m as afraid to hope that it worked as I am of what it means if it didn’t. If the well here heals, but the one at home doesn’t, I’m no closer to figuring out why.

The idea of having pain-free days—of never worrying about the spells that come on with no warning and take me out for days, of never having to worry about hiding my weakness from the world—is hard to fathom. I’m too afraid to want it—too terrified to lose again to let myself truly believe it’s possible.

Still, some small, disobedient part of me refuses to let hope die. Last night was intense, and the fact that I went through all of that after just getting over a headache seems like a good sign.

I turn back to face the art and walk to the last painting. The base painting looks like a stone wall marked with a bright white scar. It actually looks a bit like the fort wall, but the breach happened the night Holly died, so it must be something else. That, or Henry is thinking about the breach—which makes sense since this is his sister’s art.

“What does it do?” I ask.

There’s a static in the air around it. The prickly feeling dances over my skin, and I close my eyes.

Henry steps up behind me, his warmth pressing to my back as whatever magic is in the painting presses against my front. I lean back into him ever so slightly. I breathe deeply, and it doesn’t even bother me that I’m breathing in the cold-forest scent of him. A strange calm washes over me. It reminds me of the peace I feel when I’m lying in bed with Aidia and she’s smiling.

When I blink my eyes open, the painting has morphed. There’s a bright red blotch at the middle and smaller spray coming out from the center. It looks like a blood stain.

I stare at it, not even daring to breathe. A flash of memory rises in my mind unbidden—a flash of blood and pain and gasping, sobbing tears.

I bolt. I don’t even think about Henry’s warning never to run from him until I throw open the gallery door. “I’m not running.” My voice is a hoarse rasp.

He’s already behind me. “I know. That’s everyone’s least favorite. It’s hard to look at,” he says softly. “It’s called the heart mirror. It’s meant to show the hidden parts of one’s heart.”

He reaches a hand out to touch my shoulder, but seems to think better of it at the last second.

Henry did this on purpose. He wanted to see what would happen. I shouldn’t have trusted that this was a magnanimous gesture. He always has an angle.

I glance around the hall for anything to distract from my loss of composure. A half-finished painting directly across from the gallery door catches my eye. I walk toward it. The left side of the painting is a swirl of dark blues and purples, dappled with yellow. It looks like the night sky here in the fort—or half of it, at least. In the city, there’s so much light from homes and lanterns that it’s hard to see the stars, but here in the mountains, the fort is so dark at night, the sky is lit up with a brilliant array of stars.

Seeing something so beautiful unfinished makes me feel irrationally sad. It’s not like I knew her, but she was so young and she was just trying to protect her brother.

“This one was in progress when the fort fell,” Henry says.

A small placard below the art reads: In honor of the lost and the Returned from the breach.

“I know who the fallen are, but who are the Returned?” As soon as I ask the question, it hits me.

“Those of us who were called back by my mother.”

I nod. I made everything worse. I want to run. I feel disoriented, like I’m grieving something I didn’t live through and people I don’t know, and my skin is crawling with the desire to run.

“I should have warned you about the heart mirror,” he says softly. “I should have warned you.”

I try not to think of the bloody painting, but it rises in my mind.

Henry ushers me over the threshold and down the hall. “Come. I have a wedding present for you.”

Eyeing him warily, I smirk. “Something more than your eternal distrust and loathing? My wolf, you’re truly too generous.”

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29HENRY

Harlow doesn’t even pretend to like her wedding present. She just stares at the small room with her nose wrinkled, like I’ve gifted her a shoebox full of rats.

“It’s a—closet?” Harlow says.

In her defense, it’s not much to look at. Dark gray walls that soak up the meager light from a sunstone atop a simple wood table. The only other furniture is a velvet reading chair directly across from the doorway we’re standing in.

She purses her lips. “The chair is nice.”

I shake my head. “This room was blessed by Holly with unique and powerful protection magic. It’s a safe room, and its protection can be transferred to the person of my choosing. I’ve made it so that you are the only one who can get into it.”

She eyes the space with the kind of skepticism that suggests she’d never trust any space to be safe. Her mouth twitches in a hint of a smile. “I noticed the door the other day. I was wondering what was in here.”

“I bet you were.” A locked door inside my bedroom closet would have been impossible for her to ignore. I knew she’d poke around the first chance she had.

Blood drips from her finger onto the floor. I snatch her wrist and curl my hand around the wound. The cut from the lock on the door isn’t deep. It only takes a moment before it’s healed. She looks at me expectantly until I pull out a handkerchief and wipe her skin clean.