“Then I’ll leave for Romania in a month, after we’ve conceived.” He kissed my nose and stood up.

“Romania?” I gasped. “How did you—I mean, I thought he was in Paris,” I corrected, playing dumb, trying not to think about the conversation Arthur and I had a few weeks ago, when he confessed to forging a letter reporting Drake’s whereabouts.

“It was a lie,” David said. “My spies have located him in Romania.”

I sat silently, cursing David and his competence.

“Jason?” He turned to his brother, whose obvious distress had not gone unnoticed. “What is it?”

“I—” Jason paused, his face going almost blue with horror. He took a few slow steps backward, his butt meeting the shelf, making it wobble unsteadily on the uneven wood floors. “I’ve made a really big mistake.”

“What mistake?” David appeared in front of him. “Speak to me, brother?”

“I have to. . .” Jason looked at me once before slowly turning his gaze back to David. “There's something you need to know.”

David cupped his hand along the side of Jason’s neck, his thumb on his face like some Mafia boss. “You can tell me anything, brother, you know that.”

“I just wanted to save you—to save her from what she’d do to save you.”

“What do you mean? Hold that thought.” David halted the conversation with his index finger and grabbed his phone from his back pocket. “Yo.”

I frowned at Jason, but he averted his eyes quickly.

“Okay. I’ll be there in a sec.” David hung up and stowed the phone again, untucking his shirttail where the device dragged it into his pocket a little. “Ara, time for bed.”

“Why?”

“Mike’s got an issue with one of the Damned. I gotta run.”

“So?”

“So, I’m not leaving you two in the same room—alone.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Grow up, David. What d’you think I’m gonna do? Make a baby with him?”

“That’s not funny, Ara.”

I shrugged, trying not to laugh at the look on his face.

He pointed at Jason. “It’s on your shoulders, brother.”

“I’m not gonna touch her.”

“See that you don’t.”

“David?” I stood, but he disappeared. “Argh! He has got to stop doing that.”

“Ara? I’m so sorry.”

A frown moved in across my face, my gaze slowly landing on Jason. “Why are you sorry?”

“I. . .” He exhaled, folding over as if he was puffed out. “I didn't know that—about the law.”

“What do you mean?”

“I . . . if I’d known. I would never have. . .”

“Jase, you're scaring me.” I took a few steps closer and bent down to his level, gently tilting his chin upward. “What’s wrong?”

He opened his mouth, his eyes darting over every inch of my face, but no words came.

“Jase, please.”

“I’ve failed you so many times, in so many ways, Ara.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I just . . . I just need you to know that I'm sorry—for everything.”

“Okay.” I half laughed, stroking his stubbly cheek over and over again. “It’s okay, Jase. Really. Everything’s okay.”

He sobered with a shaky breath. “It is. As long as he never asks me what I was about to say.”

My frown deepened. “What were you about to say?”

“Something that would’ve ruined your last few months together.” He stood straight again. “It was stupid. I wasn’t thinking.”

“What would ruin it?”

“Nothing. Just . . . nothing.”

“Have you. . .? Did you. . .?”

“It’s nothing, Ara.” He reached across and rubbed my arm reassuringly. “I—it was just bringing up the past.”

“Yeah, don't do that.” I grinned. “He hates even thinking about it.”

“I know. I’ll uh. . .” He backed away a few steps. “I’ll see ya later, sweet girl, okay?”

“O—” I started, but when I looked up to see his smiling eyes, he was gone.

“What is it with these Knight boys and farewells?” I said, imagining Eve down here in the eerie old room beside me. But no one answered.

The morning had risen outside as we’d all talked, and there was at least enough light in here now to find a small golden apple if one were searching for it. So, I put my aches and problems away inside my chest for a minute and dusted my hands off on my nightdress, even though they weren't dirty, then folded myself in half to look under the bed. That apple I dreamed about was in here somewhere. I could have sworn I’d put it on the dresser last time, but it wasn’t there when I stole a glance behind Jason just now.

“Eve?” I said softly, not sure if she was here or if she was even real. “Can you help me find it?”

A high chime rang through the air then, sharp, but melodious, drowned out slightly by the clicking of gears. I walked slowly over to the music box on the dresser and, there, sitting among a few small trinkets, was the golden apple Eve was given before she died.

“Thank you, Eve,” I whispered, picking it up. “I promise you I’ll figure this out.”

The apple glimmered in what little dawn light crept in between the boarded windows. It was heavy for something so small, reminding me a little of a fairy tale I read when I was young—about a golden ball and a frog.

I turned it several times in my hands, poking the smooth, cold surface, but there was no hole, no button, no secret door. It was completely solid. And I had no idea what that meant. Maybe the keyhole I saw in my dream was a mistake or maybe even a metaphor, as in, maybe, the apple was the key to something, or the door to something.

“Okay, you know that promise I just made?” I said suggestively, then curled my fingers around the golden apple, hiding it away as I headed for the stairs again.

When the secret door closed behind me this morning as the dawn settled toward day, I’d stood in my empty room for longer than the clock ticking on the wall cared to admit. But David didn’t come back up—didn’t come to talk to me or make everything okay. He was gone, clearly off somewhere playing his role as king.

I left my room behind and, as I’d walked down the corridor to find him, my sweeping gaze landed on the two figures in the front yard. A caravan of delivery trucks streamed in one by one, and David and Arthur stepped up to sign for packages that were, judging by the volume of plants and boxes of beakers they were checking, the stock for Arthur’s new Herbalist Lab and greenhouse. Clearly, David wasn’t coming up to talk to me anytime soon. He’d given me all he was required to give: the facts. He’d brush it off and keep going now, duty-bound to operate in a ‘business as usual’ manner. The way he always did. Come what may.

He looked up from time to time as I paced the floors in front of the windows, and I pretended not to notice him trying to catch my gaze—walking with my head down, my fingers tightly clasped around the golden apple. He did care how I felt, for what it was worth. I knew it mattered to him how much this hurt me, but I could map the conversation out in my head that we’d have even if he did actually come up here to comfort me. Nothing I did or argued could change what had to be done. I had two options: accept his death quietly and with grace, or demonstrate my inner child by kicking and screaming about it until David was gone.

Down in the yard, a large truck arrived, and a small group of men ran eagerly toward it, tapping the edges before it even stopped. They were all smiling and laughing, talking with enough animation that I could almost read their lips. Arthur seemed more excited than the others, though. David had blessed him with the lab and greenhouse he’d applied for over the last hundred years passed, then gone and denied his own brother the same. I felt hurt for Jason. He deserved better than what he put up with here, and the truth about his brother’s future had hit him harder than even I expected. It just seemed like only Jason and I really understood what it meant—really knew what it would be like to lose David. Maybe Arthur understood, too, but he seemed to accept that this was David’s duty. As if he’d accepted it long ago, like David had. The fact was, David would go away in a month or so, pack the dagger into his bag and. . .

I took a quick breath, dropping the apple to the ground by my feet with a solid thud.

The dagger. Arthur gave him the duplicate. The fake.

I ran to the window and pressed my hands and nose against it, watching Arthur in the front yard by the pond. Maybe he wasn’t all that supportive of David’s plan after all. Maybe he had his own in effect right now. But if David journeyed to Romania with the fake dagger and jammed it through Drake’s heart, only one of them would die. And it wouldn’t be Drake.

“Ara?” David’s firm fingers wrapped my arm, gently tugging me away from the window. But when I turned around to look into his eyes, a pair of warm, caramel one’s stared back.

“Falcon.”

“You need some rest, My Queen,” he said, and a flicker of something other than business flashed in his eyes for a moment. “You’ve been out here since dawn.”

“I—” I glanced over my shoulder out the window. “I can’t sleep.”

“I know.” He dropped my arm, stepping back into professional mode. “But you at least need to lie down.”

“Why? So I can wait for my husband to die from a more comfortable position for you?” I said spitefully. “I’m sorry, does my pacing offend you somehow?”

He bent down and picked up my golden apple, studying it for a second before planting it firmly in my hand. “Don’t do this, Ara.”

“What?” I swiped a hand across my nose.

“Don’t be a spoilt brat. You’ve made so much progress lately. This isn’t you. You’re hurt, I get that, but there’s no sense in behaving like a child to express it. Which is exactly what you’re doing.”

My shoulders dropped. I looked quickly down both ends of the hall and let out a long breath. “I know. I’m sorry, I just—”

“Come on.” He grasped my upper arm and steered me toward my room. “Rest for a bit. The grief will still be there when you wake up.”

My chest caved a few times, turning the ache inside to an outward snivel. I wanted so badly just to fall into Falcon’s arms for a hug—just a pair of arms, anyone’s arms, to ease the caged, heavy feeling in my heart. But he wouldn’t have any of that. I knew that. So, I sucked up the grief and opened my door, quietly thanking Falcon before closing it and flopping down onto my bed—an “acceptable” place to grieve.