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“Val?” Elisabeth asked.
“I’m sorry. I can’t.”
Murmurs simmered around the church, but I wasn’t here for them.
I gathered Elisabeth’s hands in mine. “Forgive me. It is not you, truly. You are wonderful. But I cannot live another lie.”
I dropped her hands, turned on my heel, and walked down the aisle with a hundred gazes boring into me. My heart raced with every footfall. I wouldn’t run, not yet. Elisabeth had already suffered enough.
“Val, wait!”
I pushed through the heavy oak door and stumbled from the church into blinding sunlight. Was it wrong to feel so relieved? I tipped my face toward the sunlight and smiled. “Devere, wherever you are, I choose you.”
A slow clap shattered the moment.
Lord Rochefort clapped his gloved hands and pushed into motion from leaning against the church porch. “My, my, jilted at the altar. I’m so very glad I came.”
“You wretched fiend!” I lunged for him, swung wildly, and almost toppled into the long grass as he skipped away.
He backed up, luring me down the side of the church, into shadow.
“Where is he? What have you done with him?”
“Nothing you didn’t ask of me.”
“That’s not—you know I care about him. You twisted everything—”
“Val?” Elisabeth hurried up the path behind me. “Who’s that?”
The dashing Lord Rochefort bowed deeply. “My dear, I’m Lord Rochefort, a friend of Valentine’s, here for the wedding.”
“He’s lying,” I snarled. “He’s no friend.”
“You know I cannot lie, Valentine.”
“Manipulate the truth, then, like you’ve always done.”
Elisabeth barely cast him a lingering glance. “Val, please, come back inside. It’s not too late.”
“Oh, my dear.” Rochefort grinned. “I’m afraid he is beyond saving, if that is what you hope to do.”
“Elisabeth.” I held a hand out, urging her back. “Please go back inside. It’s not safe.”
“Safe?” Rochefort laughed. “As though I am some wicked monster!”
I swung my glare back to him and pointed. “You need to leave. You are not welcome here.”
“I disagree. Spin a little illusion, and I’m the lord of this nothing town. Welcome, indeed.”
“You cannot. You don’t have that power.”
“Don’t I? Oh, that’s right, you still believe it was all Devere’s doing. He believed that too, for a while. But Valentine, you’ve seen inside him. You know he is just a puppet. He can craft toys, make them tick-tock, but he cannot form the worlds in which they live. That takes a true master.”
“What are you saying?”
“Only that I embellished his little game, adding my own twist.”
I stared at the monster dressed like a lord, and I knew we’d all been played. “You took Devere’s creation and twisted it. Like you took Jacapo’s wish for a son and twisted that. You take the dreams of others, and you twist them up.Thatis what you do.” He’d manipulated Devere. “You are a thief, a parasite! Without the dreams of others, you arenothing.”
