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He drew a slow breath, the kind that sounded like it hurt. “When the Weavers came for her, I hesitated. Thought I could save her. It wasn't enough.” His eyes met mine, hollow with twenty-two years of loss. “And she died for it.”

“I know what you lost,” I said quietly. “But Father⁠—”

“Do you?” His voice cracked. “Do you understand what it means to watch the person you love destroyed because you weren't strong enough to protect them? To know that if you'd been harder, colder, more willing to see threats instead of possibilities, they'd still be alive?”

“It wasn't your fault.”

“It was my mercy that killed her!” The words exploded out of him, raw and terrible. “I knew she was curious about Weaver magic. I saw the company she kept. And I told myself it was harmless.”

He stopped abruptly, breathing hard. For just a moment, his mask slipped. Something raw and unguarded crossed his face before he locked it away again.

“The magic that killed her is the same magic these Weavers wield,” he continued, regaining control. “And I will not—I cannot—watch it claim anyone else I love.”

“This has nothing to do with Weavers,” I said, frustration breaking through. “Or magic. This is about refusing to marry a woman I can barely tolerate.”

“It's about you changing.”

“I'm making a decision about my own life.” I moved closer, holding his gaze. “You want me focused on the mission? Fine. But marrying Constance Sterling would destroy me more completely than any Weaver ever could.”

“That's dramatic.”

“Is it?” Now it was my turn to let frustration sharpen my voice. “You want to talk about distractions? About things that weaken resolve? Imagine coming home every night to someone who bores you. Who drains every ounce of energy you have just by existing in the same room. Who makes you want to spend every waking moment anywhere but where you are.”

I gestured sharply toward him, as though every expectation in the room was tied to him alone. “That's what marrying Constance would be. Not safety. Not stability. Slow suffocation disguised as respectability.”

“So, you'd rather be alone.”

“Then miserable, yes. And if that makes me weak in your eyes, so be it. But don't pretend this is about protecting me from Weaver influence. This is about you wanting me to follow the path you've laid out, regardless of whether it's the right one.”

Father's jaw tightened. “You think you know better than I do what's best for you?”

“I think I'm twenty-seven years old and capable of making my own decisions about who I marry.” I held his gaze. “And I think refusing to marry someone unsuitable is a sign of strength, not weakness.”

“Strength is sacrifice,” he said coldly. “Strength is⁠—”

“Being so consumed by grief that you cannot see the difference between dissolving a marriage arrangement and a Weaver threat?”

The silence that followed was absolute.

Father's expression went carefully blank. The look he got when he was deciding whether to explode or retreat into a cold distance.

“Get out.”

“Father—”

“Get out, August. Before I say something we'll both regret.”

I left before he could say anything else. Before the anger simmering in my chest could spill over into words that would fracture what little remained of our relationship.

The corridor outside his study was colder than it should have been. For a moment, I thought of Lily—that maddening mix of reason and defiance—and wondered when I’d started hearing her over him. I pressed my palm against the stone wall, trying to steady my breathing, trying to process what had just happened.

My mother's pendant burned against my skin—no longer cold, but hot, as if it had absorbed all the rage and grief that filled that room.

I'd found it on the floor of the morning room. Five years old, not understanding why she wasn't there, why Father was shouting, why the air smelled like lightning and ash. Just a little boy picking up the pretty necklace his mother had always worn, holding it like somehow it could bring her back.

Father let me keep it. Maybe he couldn’t bear to look at it. Or maybe, even then, he knew I needed something of hers to hold on to.

The pendant seared against my skin. Duty, grief, anger. For the first time, I wasn’t sure which one I was fighting for.