“You sure it wasn’t you?” He counted my sins on his fingers. “What with your murdering, and your almost getting yourself killed, and your king-stealing?”

We glared at each other for a beat.

“Fine.” I crossed my arms staunchly over my chest. “I’ll concede that I’ve very likely helped send her into a fit, but only if you tell me what the hell is going on with the two of you.”

“There’s nothing going on.”

“Liar,” I said, just as my stomach muscles clenched. I ran toward the basin and retched and retched until my ribs ached so badly, I moaned. As I wiped my mouth with a cloth, I heard the door close and lock.

Lachlan strode toward the settee and collapsed onto its cushions, propping up his feet. “I’m not lying. There is nothing going on between us, however much I would like there to be.”

“But last night the two of you had obviously been kissing at the very least.”

“That we had.” He massaged his brow like it hurt. “She also yelled at me for writing so often, even though she always wrote back. Apparently, I have not let her ‘move on’ and we are ‘no longer compatible,’ but we felt pretty damn compatible last night, so I don’t know what I’m supposed to fucking do with that.”

“I think we’re tied,” I said, before I dry-heaved once more into my fist.

He snorted, then gave me a pitying look. “You’re almost a full day into your bond now. One more day to go.”

“I don’t consider myself a petty woman.” I made for the shelf where the box of little glass vials sat and searched for some tonic that might give me relief. “But I hope that the king is curled up in a ball right now, spectacularly miserable.”

“Liar,” Lachlan quipped. “I know for a fact that you’re both riddled with worry for each other and that the only reason he hasn’t run back in here is because the contracts he’s poring over are eating away at him with sharper teeth than yours.”

The glass clinked as I lifted one after the other to read the labels. “Contracts! Not war plans, or something else confidential? Why in the bloody Gods wouldn’t he look through them in here, then?”

“They’re marriage contracts.”

A slash of envy lit my body green. My hand tightened around a vial. “Why would I care about his marriage contracts?”

Lachlan smirked. “Don’t you?”

Silence stretched for a long moment before I relented. “Yes. I care,” I admitted in an agitated rush. “Though I can’t understand why.”

“It’s the blood bond.” He lifted his wistful gaze to the ceiling. “It makes you believe you are the person best suited to care for him. To see that he isn’t harmed. The thought of him marrying another person should drive you mad.”

“Why on earth would anyone want a blood bond?” My stomach cramped again with sick, and I pressed a hand to my sternum, praying it would settle. “I can’t think of a more insufferable arrangement. It’s like I’m being thwacked with a stick over and over and over… until I throw up.”

Lachlan rose and strode to a little cabinet hidden in the gilded wall. He took out a crystal decanter and filled a glass with a healthy pour of honey-colored spirits. “Well, it’s very nice when you love the person. Or can at least stand to be in the same room as them.” His eyes twinkled—not with nostalgia, but with mischief. It was both charming and infuriating and I could see how Agatha might be at war with herself over someone like him. He held his glass up as if in a toast. “But alas, that’s not the case for you two.”

“And that pleases you, does it?”

“No.” He made his way back to his spot on the settee. “I’m mildly amused. Theodore is so good. These last few years, he’s followed every single rule every minute of every day. It’s a little entertaining to see him flounder.” He looked at me pointedly. “Despite the repercussions.”

“I see.” I gave up on the tonics, most of which were mixed with dream-inducing nepenthe, and made for the drink cabinet.

Lachlan eyed me over his shoulder. “You sure that’s wise?”

“It might take the edge off the worry.” I poured my own glass.

“Or make you more nauseated.”

“Not possible.” I took a deep drink and met Lachlan’s gaze. “You said the king has been following rules ‘these last few years.’ What was he doing before that?”

“Oh no.” He laughed, the sound warm and easy, and despite myself, I smiled. I liked him. I liked him for Agatha. “I’m not telling you a single private detail about him.”

I rounded the settee and sat on the low table before him. “I’ll put in a good word for you with Agatha.”

He went still, his hazel gaze narrowing in interest.

“Please.” My desperation was too potent for me to rein in. “I cannot find a single crack in his facade. I don’t trust that he’ll do right by me if I can’t find something, one small detail, that will knock him off his frustratingly perfect balance.”

Lachlan leaned back and considered me over the rim of his glass. He tapped his fingers against the crystal. “All right.”

“All right? You agree?”

“I do. You don’t seem to understand just how off-balance you’ve already knocked him, but I want a good word with Agatha.”

I straightened my shoulders and looked him square in the eye. “You really think I forced him, don’t you? You think I stole him.”

He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “He mentioned that you climbed into his bed, in the dark, half-naked. At the very least you were very persuasive.” I glared at him, and he gave me a defeated smirk. “Okay—I believe wholeheartedly that he agreed to your binding. Listen to me, though, I don’t want to hurt him. I love him like a brother, so don’t you dare.” His gaze darted as he thought of what information to volunteer, until finally it landed on the wrinkled blue dress I wore. His eyes lit up. “Got it.” He put his elbows on his knees. I leaned in too. “When Theo was a very new king, about six years ago, he would take this ship and turn it into a somewhat sordid pleasure cruise. Went on for a couple years. He’d fill it with beautiful women and his best wine and men from his court and sail it around from sundown to sunrise.” He pointed to my dress. “That’s where your dress came from. Left behind. No idea what the poor woman wore off the ship.”

I looked down at the musty blue silk and back up to Lachlan. “Somewhat sordid. That’s it? Not debauched. Or sickeningly immoral. Wasn’t he nineteen or twenty? That’s incredibly normal behavior for a young king. What on earth am I supposed to do with that information?”

Lachlan’s mouth pulled into a wide smile. “It haunts him. He’s disgraced by it. He thinks it was a massive, embarrassing waste of the crown’s resources, and he’s spent the years since trying to rectify the light that he thinks it cast him in with his chancellor. You’d think he’d killed an innocent man with his bare hands the way he carries on about it.”

I took a sip of my drink. “Duty-bound to his core.”

He dipped his chin. “That’s right. Now, you tell Agatha that I’ve done nothing but think of her since I last saw her, and had she let me, I would have come to Seraf and whisked her away without a second thought.”

“She told you not to?”

He nodded. “I suspect her refusal to leave had something to do with you.”

“Oh.” I felt the accusation, the touch of resentment. I cocked my head. “But is that true? That you’ve done nothing but think of her for nearly twenty years?”

He downed the rest of his drink, then pursed his lips. I was surprised when the pretense fled his voice. “I’ve taken lots of lovers over the years. Women and men, all of them witty and beautiful. All better than I could ever deserve. But one letter from Agatha makes me feel more alive, more full of hope and calm and elation, than touching any of them ever did.”

His genuine smile tugged my mouth into a crooked one. “I’ll tell her that.”

He shook his head. “Please don’t. Tell her the other thing I said.”