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A key? A key was all we’d gotten? “Hartley. That lying, no good⁠—”

Yves stopped me before I could finish that sentence. “Hartley was right about one thing. You don’t need fine dresses to be beautiful.”

I touched the place where his wounds were already nearly closed. His false face had been stripped away around the place where the silver powder had combusted, but the jealousy in his eyes belonged entirely to Yves.

I forced a smile. “You should know he contributed very little worth remembering.”

“You don’t have to explain anything.”

“I know. I wanted to.”

Yves covered my hand with his, holding it against his cheek. He was looking at me like he’d looked at me on the dance floor. I tried to convince myself he was still playing the part of Lucien Varenne: a man entranced with the woman he loved.

I pulled my hand away from his face and forced myself to take half a step back. We were here for a reason.

Slipping the key from his hand, I took a better look at it. It looked old. The metal was detailed with the same curling flower pattern found all over the gardens. And on the other side, it was stamped with the number seventy-three.

Seventy-three.

I’d seen that number before. Then I remembered that the door in the vision Mama had shown me about Honora Kemp had the number seventy-three on it. I chewed on that realization, wondering if she hadn’t led me to The Devouring for revenge, but to stop them.

“We need to keep going,” I told Yves.

He grabbed my wrist, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “I don’t think that is a good idea.”

Part of me wanted to call him a coward. To shout at him for choosing his balcony over the next step. But I knew that if I said those things, if I hurled those accusations at him, it wouldn’t be something I could take back.

He was here. He was trying. He just needed to understand why this was so important to me. So, instead of pushing him away, I decided to share my fears.

“I didn’t tell you, but I received a letter the other day. From The Devouring.”

He studied my face. “What letter?”

“They wrote about how ruinous it would be if your court learned my true name. How tormented I’d be by the scandal. And then suggested I take dominion over the situation.”

Yves’s mouth tightened.

“They chose those words for a reason. They know who I am, where I’m staying, and what I have,” I said, looking down at my satchel where my relics were hiding. “It’s only a matter of time before they decide to attack. And I don’t want these people anywhere near Adrien.”

“Then we go back and bring reinforcements.”

I shook my head. “Last time, Lou cleared The Drowned Goose before Severin arrived,” I argued, tears flashing in my eyes. “How long do you think the man chasing Hartley will need to warn Lou?”

Yves glanced at the smoke rising over the hedges. People were shouting for more water.

“We won’t get another night like this,” I said, pleading. “Everyone’s watching the fire, and we have a key that Hartley might not even know is missing.”

I grabbed his jacket and pulled him closer. My voice dropped to a whisper.

“I had a vision about a door with the number seventy-three on it, and I have reason to believe it’s connected to what The Devouring is up to. I need you to trust me.”

Chapter 39

Vulnérable

YVES

The look of pain in her bright blue eyes broke me. “I do trust you. I trust you very much. It’s just that…”