“Why? What am I supposed to do?” she says, her expression piercing. “Fall in love with you?”

I almost drop the glass.

“Don’t look so surprised,” she says. “I’ve been trying to think of what would require you to kidnap someone each season, and that’s all that makes sense. Now I understand what Grey meant when he said it’s not something I can consciously do.”

I sigh.

She continues to watch me, and her eyes narrow. “Now I understand why you’re shirtless.”

“You screamed,” I say. “Many times, and quite loudly. Would you rather I had waited to dress fully? It is lucky I did not find you facedown in a pile of entrails.”

She makes a face. “Can we not use a word like entrails?”

“Does seeing me in a state of undress sway you so easily?”

That pink on her cheeks darkens and she looks away to pick at a twist of dough from the side of the table. “Grey said you’ve tried to break this curse with hundreds of women.”

“I have.”

“He also says it doesn’t feel like you’re aging. That it’s more like a dream than a memory.”

“He is not wrong.” I refill her glass. “Five years have passed in Emberfall. I’m surprised it’s not longer, but I have no way to keep track. And many seasons do not reach their close.”

She studies me, her expression inscrutable. “Why would the season restart earlier?”

“The season begins again if I die.”

She nearly chokes on a piece of dough. “If you die?”

“Yes.”

“But … how?”

“At this point, I’ve tried everything. A fall from a great height. Impalement by whatever you can imagine. Drowning. I ordered Grey to behead me once, because I was curious, but he refused—”

“Okay, okay, I get it.” She looks a bit queasy again. “So you just … come back to life?”

“Every season begins in the room where you first appeared, regardless of how the previous season ended.”

“What happens to the girl when you kill yourself?”

“She is returned home. As far as I know.”

Harper goes still with her hand on a new twist of dough. “So I could kill you and get to go home?”

“I have no way of knowing for sure. The seasons begin again. The girls are gone.”

She’s studying me. Imagining my death. Plotting it, probably. Wondering if it’s worth the risk.

I shrug and take a sip of wine. “Any other season and I would hand you a weapon and invite you to try.”

“What’s different this time?”

“This is my final season,” I say quietly. “My final chance. If you were to kill me, I would truly die.” I lift my eyes to find hers. “I have no idea what would happen to you.”

She goes very quiet at that. We both eat twists of dough.

When she eventually speaks, it’s not a question I’m expecting. “Did you get naked with these hundreds of women, too?”

She’s so direct that she’d be intimidating under other circumstances. “Such questions you ask.”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, that’s sure not a no.”

“It is, in fact.” I wonder how honest to be. “I lured them all into my life. I abhor the idea of luring them into my bed—and I certainly would not force them. In truth, there is no greater crime in Emberfall.”

“Murder?”

“In death, the crime ends.”

She evaluates me for a long moment. “I believe you.”

“I have no reason to lie.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?” she says. “I thought you couldn’t.”

“Why would you think such a thing?” I lean across the table and swipe another scrap of dough. Cinnamon and sugar melt on my tongue. The perfect foods from the Great Hall and my personal rooms have grown interminably boring, but eating bits of dough in the kitchen reminds me too much of childhood to hold much rancor.

As I lift the piece to my mouth, Harper’s eyes drift down across my chest, following the motion of my arm.

Interesting. Especially after her censorious glare when she thought I was bedding every young woman Grey drags back to the castle.

She pulls a piece of dough for herself. Her eyes shy away from mine now. “Because Grey couldn’t.”

“He is ordered to keep his silence.” Though now I’m curious how much he said.

“And you are not.”

“I am the crown prince.” I pull a larger scrap of dough from the pile and twist it in half, extending a piece to her. “I am ordered nothing.”

“Do you always pull women from DC?”

“Not at first. But now, yes.”

“Why?”

I reach for another piece of dough. “At first, I sought courtiers from among the noble women of Emberfall. I thought such a curse could be easily undone. Who does not love a prince?” My chest tightens as I remember. “As it turns out, many women do not.”

“So you eventually ran out of noblewomen …”

“I sought a woman from the village,” I say. I drain my glass again, and will likely need another. “Her name was Corra. A very kind, simple girl. I rode into town with much fanfare. Her mother wept when I announced my intention to marry her daughter. The entire village filled a trunk with offerings, providing a dowry. As if I needed their riches.”

I hesitate.

“What happened to Corra?” Harper says quietly.

“The monster tore her limb from limb. Her mother sobbed on my steps and demanded to know why the king had not been able to offer her daughter protection.”

Harper stops chewing. “And the king was dead.”

“Yes. The king was dead. I turned her mother away.”

“So then what?”

“I declared that I would no longer risk my own people. By that point I had lost so many. I refused to sacrifice any more.”

“Oh, but people from my home were fair game?”

I slap my hand against the table. “You must know that my intent with each woman was to break the curse. Not to prolong it.”

She glares at me. I glare at her. We fall into silence.

The fire crackles in the hearth, and the soup threatens to bubble over. It won’t, I know. An invisible chef will stir it and lower the heat before it has a chance. The scent of cooked poultry is beginning to fill the room.

Then Harper looks up and meets my eyes. “Declared to who?”

“Pardon me?”

“You said you declared you would no longer risk your own people. Who did you declare this to?”

I’m frozen in place.

She narrows her eyes at me. “Who’s the enchantress?”

I drain my glass. “Her name is Lilith.”

“So she can send me home.”

“No, my lady.”

“Maybe I should ask her. How do I find her?”

My eyes flick at the corners, as if this conversation could summon the enchantress. “You do not want to find her.”

“But—”

“Do you not understand that she was the cause of the damage you found on the third floor?” My voice is low and vicious and full of remembered pain.

Harper goes pale.

I take a breath. My head is so tangled up with memories of death and suffering. The hundreds of girls swirl through my mind, each one a reminder of how I failed them and failed my people.

Grey was wrong. The failed seasons are not like dreams. They’re like nightmares.

I shift off the stool to stand. “Forgive me, my lady. I am keeping you from your rest. Shall I escort you back to your room?”

“Are there any other surprises in the castle?”

“Not today.”

“Then I want to stay here.” She grips the edge of the table as if worried I’m going to physically drag her out of the kitchen.

I give her a nod and turn for the door.

“Rhen,” she calls after me.

I pause in the doorway and face her.

“I’m not going to fall in love with you,” she says.

Her words are not a surprise. I sigh. “You won’t be the first.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

HARPER

I poke around the kitchen until I find a bowl and a spoon, then move to the cauldron hanging over the fire. A large ladle hangs from a hook set into the masonry. I scoop out a large serving, then pull a hunk of bread from the end of a loaf on the counter.

Images from the blood-soaked room threaten to replay in my mind, and I shove them away.

Instead, my brain is content to fix on what he said about asking Grey to behead him. How he was curious.

Yesterday, he talked about throwing musical instruments into the fire. This morning he mentioned impalement and drowning. And hundreds of women, all of whom failed to fall in love with him.

If he just had to find a woman to lust after him, he probably would have been free of this curse in a day. I can’t deny that he’s easy on the eyes. The high cheekbones, the dark blond hair that turns gold in the firelight, the brown eyes that reveal nothing. Muscle cords his arms from shoulder to wrist, and he carries himself with purpose. People are quick to kneel before him—but he’s also quick to expect it.

When he opens his mouth, though, he’s arrogant and calculated. There’s no shred of vulnerability or weakness. In fact, if there’s any weakness, it’s the obvious frustration that he can’t just wave a hand and order a woman to love him.