Still, I couldn’t bring myself to wish it upon her. Couldn’t bring myself to hope the male she’d admired her entire life would bring a fist of judgment down upon her.

I didn’t know what I wanted.

But it wasn’t that.

I wasn’t sure where that put me on the justice scale.

“I don’t remember killing her,” was all she said. She shrugged, as if in resignation. “It had to have been me, though. Or whatever’s inside me. I was the only one there that night.”

Something flickered in Evander’s sea-green eyes. A curiosity of sorts, but a dreadful one, as if his mind had gotten snagged on a question he didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to know the answer to.

I asked it for him. “Why were you at Madame LeFleur’s the night of the ball, Blaise?”

Her head jerked up, like the sound of her name on my lips had been a beacon, guiding her back through the shadows to a friendship that no longer existed.

She must have seen the truth of that on my face, because the hope in the whites of her eyes wilted. “I went to her to ask for a potion.”

Evander shifted, the fabric of his coat stretching against his muscular arms, his chiseled back. “What did you need a potion for?”

She wouldn’t look at him, so instead she addressed me, as if I’d been the one to ask. “I asked her for a potion that would make me different…look different, I mean. I didn’t intend for”—she gestured at herself, at the small body cloaked in seduction and shame—“this to happen. For her to change me entirely.”

Evander took a step forward, and my heart clenched as he did. But then he was kneeling next to her, and two very opposing forces waged a battle within me.

There was the rage, the jealousy that Evander and Blaise had something so deeply rooted that he would reach out to her, forgive her for what she’d done to me.

Then there was the other force. This one meeker, hardly notable, except in the face of all that rage and jealousy and wrath, it stood firm. Small but resolved.

I think it was the part of me that would have liked to be loved like that. The part of me that watched Evander, his palm cupping the face of the little girl he’d taken in as his sister, and loved that part of him.

I loved it irrevocably, even if it ended up meaning that he’d chose her freedom over my safety in the end. I loved that he loved and did not falter.

I could hate him for it, but the love ran deeper.

Because I admired him, I realized. For all the insults I’d hurled at him, for all the facets of his character I’d attacked, I admired Prince Evander of Dwellen, and that was something remarkable indeed.

I loved him, and it was infuriating, and I hated him for it.

“Why did you think you needed to change a single thing about you, Blaise?” he asked, affection pouring from his sea-green eyes. He almost let out a frustrated laugh. Almost. “Do you not see yourself? You’re perfect the way you are.”

Blaise let out a wheezy sob, and her eyes watered over.

I couldn’t help the way my head cocked at that. Boisterous, carefree Blaise. Men following her like she was a Fate herself Blaise?

Sure, I’d never thought Blaise was extraordinarily pretty, at least not until she smiled. But if someone would have bet with me on who would venture to Madame LeFleur’s with the intent of altering her appearance, they would have owned my father’s window-making business by now.

But then I looked closer, looked through the cracks of her expression, and I saw it in the corners of her eyes, heard it in the sound of my memories.

Would you rather fall in love with Evander and get out of your marriage bargain—but you can never be with him? Or would you rather never love him and be stuck married to him for the rest of your life?

Andy has awful taste in women.

At least I have Andy, though.

…fall in love with Evander…but you can never be with him…

My heart stopped.

I heard her answer a second before she opened her mouth.

Evander was eons behind the both of us.

“I love you, Andy,” she said.

My heart dropped into my stomach, but Evander only smiled. “I love you too, Blaise. I’ve always told you, you’re my sister.”

She shook her head, her eyes somehow both bright and empty.

“Not like that.”

CHAPTER 55

EVANDER

Time slowed down, reworked itself as my brain tried again to translate what Blaise had just said.

But every time my mind processed and reprocessed her words, it spit out the same result.

“Not like that.”

Fates, I was going to be sick.

My hand faltered at her cheek, and before I could recover my composure, she jolted back, rejection soiling her face, her familiar eyes widening.

“Blaise, I don’t…”

Her face heated, and she scooted away from me on the floor, wrapping herself in that flimsy burlap. Ellie stood behind me, but I could sense her presence stiffen.

“Please,” Blaise said. “You don’t have to say it. I know you don’t see me that way. You never have.”

There was no blame in her voice, no derision. Just numb resignation.

Blaise, little Blaise who I used to toss into the air, sending her flying so Jerad would catch her. I could still hear her giggles when I tickled her, still feel her drool that I’d wiped off my shoulder after she’d fallen asleep on it.

How many times had I tousled her hair, planted a kiss on her forehead, wrapped her up in a hug? All things whose interpretations seemed so obvious to me, so clear.

My face heated with shame. Had I given her the wrong idea, had I gotten so used to wooing the courtesans that I’d taken to bed, that I’d forgotten the line between platonic teasing and flirting?

My stomach churned, guilt piercing through me.