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She waited, forcing me to follow the answer to the point I’d avoided.
“Would it have changed what Adrian wants now?”
“No.” My reasons shrank with each answer. Fear had only made them feel useful.
“Then you hid it to protect your chance with me.”
“Yes.” The answer came out rough.
Her shoulders lowered, though the anger remained. “That’s the answer I wanted.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know. I’m deciding what to do with it.”
I stayed where I was. Reaching for her would only ask her to carry my guilt as well as her anger.
After a moment, Bryony sat on the bed again. “If the Crown takes control of me as it took control of Cecily, could you kill me?”
I couldn’t answer quickly. She saw the delay and waited.
“I’d try to remove it,” I said. “I’d break the throne, burn the chapel and kill Adrian. I’d do every other thing I could think of first.”
“And if none of that worked?”
I looked at her. She’d walked into my prison, opened my chains and refused a Crown that could force me to obey her.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I won’t promise I could watch it use you to kill the court. I can’t promise I could put my hands on you and end your life either.”
She held my gaze. “That’s a horrible answer.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I know.”
Bryony reached for my hand. I crossed the room and gave it to her.
Her fingers closed around mine. She was still angry, and she didn’t pretend the confession had fixed anything. She kept me there anyway.
“Then we make sure you never have to choose,” she said.
32
BRYONY
Stellan kept his hand in mine.
He didn’t pull me closer or ask whether I forgave him. He stood where I’d left him and waited while I tried to fit his confession around the man I knew.
He’d made a terrible choice for a woman he loved, then hidden it because he feared making the same mistake with me. I understood him well enough for that to hurt.
“No more careful answers,” I said. “If I ask, you tell me everything, even when you think I’ll leave.”
His thumb moved across my palm. “Especially then.”
The promise didn’t erase the lie or return the dead, but it gave me the facts to decide what came next.
I tightened my fingers around his and drew him half a step closer.
