INICIAR SESIÓNKNOX’S POVNathaniel is staring at me.“The gala,” I say. “That’s your chance. Not to win her. Not to fix it. To stand up in front of the woman who never once gave up on you and let her see that you know exactly what she was worth—before you’re gone. Give her one thing that’s true. One thing with no engineering under it. And then let her forgive you, or let her not—but let her choose it, with the whole truth laid out in front of her.” I glance over. “Can you do that? One real thing. In front of everyone.”“…I don’t know,” Nathaniel says, and it’s quiet, and it’s the most honest thing he’s said in the car. “I’ve never done a real thing in front of everyone in my life. I don’t know if I know how.”“Then it’ll mean more when you do it,” I say. “Because she’ll know exactly what it cost you to try.”He’s silent the rest of the way into the city, staring out the window at the grey buildings coming up, and I let him be, because I’ve planted it—and Nathaniel, whatever else he is, has never on
KNOX’S POV“Thank you.” He’s staring straight ahead, and his voice is steady, and there’s something in it I’ve never heard from him before—something almost peaceful. “For the mercy of it.”“Mercy.” The word comes out flat and disbelieving. “I’m putting you in a cell for the rest of your natural life, Nathaniel. That is not mercy.”“It is, though.” He turns to face me. “Knox. If I had done what I did to any other man alive—drugged him, engineered the deaths of sixty-three of his people, his mate included, looked him in the eye and lied to him for a decade—I would already be dead. You’d have killed me with your bare hands, slowly, and there is not a soul on this continent who would have called it anything but justice. That was the earned outcome. That was what I had coming.” His jaw tightens. “Instead you’re giving me a trial. A lawful one. A cell instead of a grave. You’re letting me answer for what I did like a man instead of dying like a dog in a yard—and you’re doing it while every
KNOX’S POVNathaniel’s already got the tablet out when I slide in, thumbs moving, that constant restless motion of a man whose mind outruns his body.“There’sa Hale thing,” I say, once we’re through the gates. “I need your read on it, and I need you to tell me it’s nothing.”He doesn’t look up. “Can’t promise that until I hear it. Go.”“Ember says that when they sparred, Hale did something that stopped her wolf. Reached inside her and shut Sapphire off, mid-channel. Switched her off like a tap.” I watch the road unspool. “And there was blood from Hale’s eyes afterward. And Ember says she looked older after. Aged, in the space of the fight.” I make myself say the rest. “So tell me my cousin has a party trick, Nathaniel. Tell me it’s nothing.”Nathaniel doesn’t answer right away, and when I glance over, the tablet is face-down on his knee and his expression has gone genuinely still.“I can’t tell you that,” he says slowly.“Nathaniel—”“Because I’ve read about it.” He turns to look at m
KNOX’S POV“She’s the lady of this house now. It falls to her. That’s simply how it is.” I keep my voice even. “But you’ll attend. As the guest of honour. The whole gala will rise and toast you, and it will be a farewell fit for a Volkov. A proper one. Grand. Everything you’re owed for the years you gave this place.” And I mean it, and I need her to hear that I mean it. “That’s my gift to you, Hale. We say our goodbyes at the feast, in front of everyone, with honour and with witnesses. And then you go to your new life with your head held high. But until then—” and here my voice hardens. “—you stay away from Ember.”Her chin comes up.“Away from her.”“I don’t understand everything that’s happened between the two of you,” I say. “I don’t understand why you took her to Celeste’s room. I don’t understand the things she’s told me or the way the two of you look at each other like there’s a war already declared. I don’t have the energy for this, and I’ve made my peace with the fact that I m
KNOX’S POV“Knox—” It comes out strained.“I told you that one day you’d be free of this house,” I say. “That you’d go out into the world, and it would finally see how clever you are, and it would be sorry it ever tried to make you small. That you wouldn’t have to work twice as hard to be worthy.” I hold her wet, furious gaze. “I meant it then, Hale. I mean it now. That’s what this is. It’s a punishment. It’s not a banishment. This house—” I gesture at it, the walls, the shelves, the grandmother’s crowded things “—this house is another linen press. A beautiful one. The most comfortable one in the world. You finally have what you always wanted: their respect. They don’t whisper about ‘Creepy Hale’ anymore; they bow to the former Lady of the house. I know exactly how intoxicating that tastes, and I know you’d burn the world down before you ever go back to being a joke. But you have spent your whole life being Knox Volkov’s cousin, who runs the house. And you are so much more than that;
KNOX’S POVI go to Hale after breakfast, which is to say after one cup of coffee and most of a second, because I put it off exactly as long as I can justify and not one minute longer.She’s in the small sitting room she’s colonised over the years, the warm one in the east wing with her grandmother’s things crowding every shelf and the permanent smell of dried herbs hanging in the air.She’s at the window with her tea when I fill the doorway, and her whole face opens when she sees me, warm and delighted, the way it always does.“Knox! Up before noon two days running, that’s practically a feast day. Sit, I’ll ring down for—”“Hale.”Something in my voice stops her hand halfway to the bell. She sets the tea down instead, slowly, and folds her hands in her lap, and her head tilts.“That’s your bad-news voice, cousin. You’ve had it since you were twelve. Out with it.”“You’re moving out.”I watch it land. I watch the warmth drain out of her face by degrees, watch her go pale and then very
KNOX’S POVHe blinks, the picture of innocence. “I’m not sure I understand. I explained the purpose quite clearly at the beginning of the evening. Conflict resolution. Closure. An opportunity for all parties to—”“Bullshit.”The word is deadpan, and I see Logan’s head snap up, see Gale’s sobbing st
EMBER’S POVWhen I step outside the girls’ cabin with Rayana and Queenie flanking me, Rayana is mid-monologue about the caribou she’s planning to devour at dinner — something about sinking her teeth into tender, perfectly seared meat that borders on orgasmic — and I’m half-listening, half-scanning
EMBER’S POVThe laughter dies. Everyone’s eyes slide to Knox, who shrugs without a trace of shame.“Not much of a secret if you all already know.”“You could have at least tried to be mysterious about it,” Rayana sighs. “Where’s the fun in confessing things everyone already knows?”“You said write
EMBER’S POV“Finally,” Rayana drawls. “I thought we were going to have to hose you two down.”“Shut up,” I say, but I’m grinning. “Let’s go eat your caribou.”Dinner is a production.Rafael has transformed the main lodge into something out of a fairy tale — candles everywhere, a fire roaring in the







