“Blaise, I never meant… I’m so sorry if I…”

She waved me off, though it was a half-hearted gesture. “You never treated me like anything other than a sister.”

It wasn’t quite relief that leaked into my chest.

My mouth couldn’t seem to find words at the moment, but Ellie spoke for me. “You meant to attend the ball. To trick him into falling in love with you by wearing a different face.”

There was no judgment in Ellie’s tone, but the words stung Blaise all the same. I couldn’t tell whether Ellie meant it, but she had that way about her. That way of rebuking that could be so practical, so void of emotion, that it stung all the worse.

Because when she stripped all the anger, all the accusation away, there was nothing left but the truth.

There was no mollifying truth. No watering it down.

Blaise swallowed, grimacing. “No use in denying it, I suppose. Though, that’s not how I talked myself into it at the time. I told myself that if I could just talk to you like I was someone else, without you having all the memories of me as a child, I thought maybe you’d realize what we could be. You just…” She took a deep breath. “After Jerad died, you were just so lonely all the time. I could tell you were hurting more than you made out to be. But you wouldn’t let me help you, wouldn’t let me in. Instead, you turned to them.”

Them. The way she pronounced that small, insignificant word made my chest cave in.

Them. Generic. Inconsequential. Unremarkable. Unworthy of being remembered by name.

That was how I’d seen them, though, wasn’t it? Just another beautiful female to drink myself to numbness on.

Shame washed over me like a sip of sour wine.

“I knew they weren’t making you any happier. You just kept getting more and more…jaded. But not around me, at least not when you knew I was paying attention. I could make you smile. I could do that when they couldn’t. They could catch your eye and get into your bed, but I could make you laugh, make you happy. And I thought that would be enough for me, but then the ball was announced, and the idea of you marrying one of those…” She had to swallow to keep herself from a crude word, I was sure of it. “I just thought: here’s my last chance. I never intended for it to go this far. My plan was to purchase a potion that would change my appearance for the night, get you to see how much happier you would be married to a friend, rather than one of those shallow females who only wanted you for your title. I planned to tell you before anything happened, I swear it. I just wanted you to see…”

Nausea washed over me at the seduction I might have attempted had things gone according to Blaise’s plan, if Cinderella hadn’t left early that night. Even if Blaise had been in control as she’d planned to be, she was clearly love-struck, smitten over an ideal of us that didn’t exist. Would she have had the self-control to resist, to admit who she truly was, if I had tried to…

My stomach reeled.

It must have shown on my face, because Blaise’s expression went empty, like she was trying desperately to shield herself from my disgust. “It was horrible of me.”

My mind raced for the evidence to put the pieces of the past together, the moments that should have betrayed Blaise’s feelings for me.

The morning after I’d met Cinderella—Fates, Blaise in that psycho’s form—Blaise had taken me to the kitchen so I could drown my troubles in pastries.

You wanna tell me what you loved about her?

She’d sounded so different than normal, so uncharacteristically concerned. I’d thought she worried that I’d throw her friendship to the side as soon as we found Cinderella, but that hadn’t been all of it, had it? She’d been hurting, wondering what this Cinderella had that she did not.

She hadn’t known at the time that she was Cinderella.

She’d been hiding behind the suits of armor when I met Ellie. I’d attributed it to her inherent curiosity, but what if there had been more to it? Had her desire to get a glimpse of my betrothed come from jealousy?

Then there was the time she dragged my drunken self back to the castle. But why had she happened across me anyway? Had it simply been a coincidence, or had Blaise been following me?

The next morning, she told me she’d find me a way out of the fae bargain.

And Blaise, the girl who’d despised reading since she was a child, had pored over legal books for hours on end.

It had been Blaise who discovered the ancient law that allowed Ellie’s parents to annul the bond.

She’d kept looking even after my efforts had waned.

I’d thought she was doing it for me.

And maybe she was, in her own desperate sort of way that believed the key to my happiness lay with her.

The night I’d carried her back to bed—Fates, I’d carried her—what sort of message had that sent? She’d asked me if I loved Ellie, and when I’d responded that I wasn’t sure, she’d buried her face in her hands.

There had been a moment when my stomach had lurched, when I’d been horrified that I might have hurt her somehow.

But then she’d bounced right back and been Blaise again, despairing about how I’d had her do all that reading for nothing.

How many times had Blaise donned that carefree mask? How many times should I have noticed the cracks?

I was going to be sick.

Ellie, Fates bless her, cleared her throat and went on with the interrogation like two out of the three of us weren’t about to throw up. “So things clearly didn’t go as planned. Unless you intentionally requested a potion that would leave you without control of your—well, another’s—body during the hours before the full moon meets its apex?”

“Is that when it ends?” Blaise asked. “I’m usually too disoriented when I wake up to notice.”

Ellie stared at her, as if to say, Well, am I going to have to keep asking you the obvious questions, or are you just going to explain what happened?

I couldn’t help but love her for that.

Blaise’s voice went dry. “I don’t know what happened. I asked the Madame for a potion. She told me her shop was closed, but I suppose she felt bad for me for not being dressed to go to the ball, because she said she might have something and went searching in the back. She came back with a potion, and I paid her, and the next thing I remember, I’m waking up in a ditch in the streets, and the ball is over. I thought she’d scammed me, that she’d just given me a sleeping draft to get me off her back. Besides, I was too upset about missing the ball and my chance to… I didn’t have the energy to confront her about it. So I went back to the palace and didn’t think about it again until… well, until I woke up covered in blood.”

“So we’re to surmise that whatever is inside of you isn’t the work of a potion, but of a darker magic,” Ellie said.

Blaise blanched, and it tugged at my heart. I was so mad at her. So mad I wanted to shake her, but I couldn’t imagine what she must be feeling, knowing that she was possessed with some magic psychopath who had a thing for me.

My face must have paled, because Blaise said again, “Please tell me what I did.”

Ellie ignored her, pacing the workshop, her slender fingers resting against her chin as she thought. Fates, she was gorgeous when she was thinking. Which was pretty much always. “You were right to research the Queen of Naenden. If anyone will know what’s happened to you, it will be her. Maybe she can help.”

For the first time all night, hope swelled in Blaise’s eyes. There was no forgiveness in Ellie’s analytical words, but she wanted to help Blaise. Sure, that was strategic, in a way. As long as Blaise was possessed, there was a being out there who wanted to take Ellie’s life. But still. It was something.

I couldn’t help but admire her for it.

It had been worth it, what I’d given up, to keep Ellie Payne under the sun a few decades longer.

She was the kind of celestial being that didn’t come around often, a meteor that only showed itself once every few centuries.

That brilliance in Blaise, the one I’d gotten used to being warmed by her entire life, flared back up. She hopped to her feet. “I can go to Naenden. I’ll petition the queen, and I’ll find a way to get it out of me; I will.”

Ellie scanned her over, hesitantly.

“Ellie, I’m so sorry for putting you in danger. I should have told you as soon as I started getting suspicious.”