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“I'm afraid he'll bend. That he'll decide protecting me isn't worth destroying his whole life.”

“Ah. You're worried he'll choose duty over love.”

The word hung between us like a blade. Love. Such a small word for something that was rewriting my entire existence.

“I'm worried he'll choose survival over truth,” I said quietly.

“Same thing, really.” Garrick's tone was light, but when I turned my head to see him, his eyes were serious. “For August, anyway. He's never known the difference.”

“Tell me about his mother. Everything. Anything. He mentioned her last night, but. . .” I trailed off, remembering the raw pain that had broken through August's composure when he'd spoken of his mother who'd died trying to stop what he'd spent his life perpetuating.

Garrick was quiet for a long moment. When he finally spoke, something in him had softened in a way I'd never heard before.

“I don’t remember much. Just the feeling of being around her. . . love. He was five when she died, and for months afterward he'd wait by the front door every evening, convinced she'd walk through it.”

My chest tightened. “Do you know how she really died?”

“Officially? Attacked by Weavers. Elias made quite the show of grief. Used her death to justify the first major purge—claimed her blood demanded vengeance.”

“And unofficially?”

“I don’t know. I was barely seven myself. But I remember how efficiently Elias turned her death into a weapon.”

I thought of August's face when he'd spoken of loyalty, of the way he'd held his mother's pendant like a talisman.

“His mother, Elowen, she was a Weaver. The others told me her magic sent me back to this time. To right what's been wronged.”

“Honestly, I am not surprised. Because for twenty-two years I've been watching him try to live up to a ghost. Elias convinced him that honoring her memory meant destroying her enemies. That vengeance was love. How do you tell someone their entire life has been built on a lie?”

“By trusting them to handle the truth.”

“Like you trusted him with yours?” Garrick's tone wasn't accusatory, just tired. “We're all trying to protect each other from realities we think will break us. The problem is, the lies are breaking us faster.”

We rode in silence for a while, the only sounds were the horse's hooves on the packed earth and the distant call of winter birds. The forest grew denser, darker, older. These weren't the manicured gardens of Oxford but something wilder—trees that had stood for centuries, paths that wound like secrets.

“He's my brother in all but blood.” The words came out thick, like they'd caught on something. “I've watched him transform from a laughing boy into his father's weapon. And I've been too much of a coward to stop it.”

“You're stopping it now.”

“Am I?” I looked at him again and saw the fear he'd been hiding behind his grins. “Or am I just making it worse? If August defects, if he breaks with his father completely—do you know what that will cost him?”

The question hung in the air like smoke. I thought of the way August had looked when he'd kissed me—like he was drowning and I was air. But I also thought of the steel in his eyes when he'd vowed to burn the Hawthorne name to ash.

“He's already decided,” I said quietly. “The cost doesn't matter to him anymore.”

“It should matter to you.”

The words hit like a physical blow, sudden anger flaring through me. “You think I don't know what he's sacrificing? You think I don't feel the weight of every choice he's making?”

“I think you're a young woman who's falling in love with someone whose entire world is about to crumble.” Garrick's expression softened, but his words remained firm. “I think you see the man he's becoming and not the wreckage of who he's been.”

“And what if I do?” I challenged. “What if I think he's worth saving?”

“Then you'd better be prepared to help him save himself. Because August has been his father's son for so long, he's forgotten how to be anything else.”

The fight went out of me as suddenly as it had come. I sank back into Garrick, the weight of it all settling on my shoulders like a heavy cloak.

“I'm terrified,” I admitted.