“Peck says you need to eat something. Don’t you, Peck?” Evander asked pleasantly.

“As much as it pains me to do so, I agree, your Highness,” Peck said without looking up from the salve he was mixing on my desk.

“Great, because I ordered that lunch be delivered at noon.”

“Thank you, but I’m really not hungry,” I said.

“Just try it.” He smiled. “And we can talk while you do.”

“I’m too tired to—”

“Okay, no. We’re going to talk about who did this to you,” Evander said.

“Why are you pushing me about it when you already know the answer?” I asked through gritted teeth. I wasn’t sure why I was so angry all of a sudden, but I was. And for some reason, my heart seemed to think that Evander was to blame for it.

“Ellie,” he said, taking my hand. My heart lurched at the feel of his soft caress as his thumb stroked the back of my hand. “Please. Just tell me who it was.”

I sighed. “She looked to be about my age, maybe a little older. She had really pale skin and hair to match.”

Evander swallowed. “How pale?”

“She could have disappeared into the moonlight easier than trying to hide in the shadows.”

I watched his face, searching for any hint of recognition. Of admission.

“Did she say anything to you?”

I shuddered. “Just that I wasn’t supposed to wake up. Then she disappeared.”

Evander let out a slow, controlled breath. I waited. I wasn’t going to be the one to say it out loud. Not when it would make me sound like a jealous lunatic.

And I wasn’t a lunatic.

“Anything else about her?”

“Her eyes were blue.”

“Are you sure you’re getting all the details right? I know you must have been so terrified, and it was dark in your room…”

“Evander.”

“Yes?” His eyes glistened. Pleading.

“Have you ever described your mystery girl to me?”

“A few times—”

“No, I mean what she looked like.”

He shook his head.

“And does what I’m describing sound like her?” There, I said it.

He clenched his teeth, and his jaw bulged before he nodded.

“Don’t you think it would be a bit too much of a coincidence if it wasn’t her?”

“You could have heard descriptions from the servants. Some of them were there the night of the—”

“You think I’d make this up? That I’d lie to you about it?” My voice went high, hoarse from when I’d screamed so loudly. “Why would I do that? What, do you think you’re just that irresistible, that women would go to any lengths to have you? You probably think I stabbed myself just to get your attention, don’t you?”

He clamped his mouth shut, but not in the way he did when he was angry with his father, when he ground his teeth and looked as though his jaw might rip through his skin. No, his mouth just seemed as if it had simply run out of words and decided to close up shop accordingly.

The rage in me wilted at that expression. “I’m sorry. I know you weren’t accusing me of that.”

He shook his head and rested his chin on his hand. “I was hoping it was a subconscious thing. That you’d heard her described and forgotten about it, and you only thought you saw her that night. Like your mind was playing tricks on you in your stress.”

“I’ve never been told what she looked like, Evander.” Well, other than her skin being pale.

Peck tensed in the corner.

“That seems clear enough now.” Evander sighed as he stroked my hand before setting it back on the bed beside me. My heart hung in the air a bit as he let go and folded his hands in his lap. “What I don’t understand is why.”

I forced myself up in the bed by my elbows.

“Here, let me help you.” Evander placed his powerful hands on my shoulders and helped scoot me up. When he pulled away, I could still feel the buzzing imprint of his fingers on my shoulders.

“Isn’t it clear why?” I settled into my new position on my favorite pillow. “She’s jealous that you’re marrying me. She wants me out of the way so she can marry you instead.”

He frowned, a crease forming above the bridge of his nose. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

It was my turn to frown. Despite the railings I’d heard from women at social gatherings, I had never been under the impression that males were actually as oblivious as women made them out to be. I always figured it all was some master scheme to keep women from expecting too much of them. “It makes perfect sense. She’s jealous, and she wants me dead.”

“But, no, it doesn’t. I understand that she’d rather us not wed, but I thought…”

“What?”

“Well, I guess I thought she knew better than that. That I love her, not you.”

Two projectiles penetrated my heart in that moment. The first came from the words themselves—the admission that he didn’t love me. The second came when, once again, I remembered Evander’s fae heritage meant he couldn’t lie.

If he said he didn’t love me, I couldn’t blame it on his inability to verbalize the truth.

If he said he didn’t love me, then he didn’t.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Evander said, taking my hand. I cleared my throat and pulled it back. “Of course I’ve got a soft spot for you. You’re… Well, you’re the only real friend I’ve had in years, since Jerad, other than Blaise. I do love you, I do.”

Love. What a strange word. You’d have thought we’d have come up with a better word to describe two completely different things.