Steel's Edge

ELEVEN

CHARLOTTE swept the cabin floor, chasing the dust and tiny particles of ash into a neat pile. It had been three days since they had arrived at the cabin. Richard called it his Lair, but even lairs could stand a sweeping. Three days of nothing but conversation, savory meals, and sex. Unrestrained, amazing sex. She smiled to herself.

A delicious aroma of frying meat floated up from the kitchen, accompanied by the sizzle of food in a hot pan. She wasn’t sure what Richard was cooking for breakfast, but whatever it was, it smelled divine. He liked to cook, she’d discovered.

A faint hissing announced a phaeton arriving. They had been waiting for it.

“We come in peace,” a male voice announced from the outside. “Don’t shoot us.”

Richard leaned away from the stove. “It’s my brother.”

“I’ll let him in,” she said.

Charlotte unlatched the door and swung it open. A man in his early thirties stood on the porch, carrying a very thick leather file. The resemblance was definitely there: similar hair, except Richard combed his and Kaldar left it in a disorganized mess; similar faces, both handsome with contoured jawlines and pronounced cheekbones; similar height. And yet they were different. Richard’s features had nobility and pride, while Kaldar was handsome in a roguish way, with a wild glint to his eyes and a charming grin. She had a feeling he smiled frequently and lied easily, while each of Richard’s rare smiles was a gift.

Kaldar blinked. “Who are you?”

“I’m Charlotte,” she told him.

“A pleasure. Say, Charlotte, have you seen Richard? A brooding fellow about as tall as me, but much uglier and incapable of humor?”

“Uglier?”

“Well, perhaps not uglier per se, but definitely more melancholy. His trouble is that he thinks too much. It keeps him from enjoying life. Have you seen him?”

“He’s inside cooking.”

“Cooking? He hates to cook.”

Kaldar stepped over the threshold and ducked left. A knife sprouted from the doorframe where his head had been a moment ago. Kaldar flicked his fingers at the blade. “See? Incapable of humor.”

“What are you talking about?” Richard raised his eyebrows. “I thought the look on your face was bloody hilarious.”

“Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?”

A young man followed Kaldar through the door. An impeccably tailored jacket hugged his fit, slim frame, and he moved with the casual elegance so many bluebloods strived to achieve through dancing lessons. He walked with supple grace but a certain surety, not a dancer, but rather a swordsman. His blond hair, cut long, which usually indicated a mage, accentuated the precise cut of his features, still touched with boyish softness. He turned to her. Familiar blue eyes looked at her from a face that was already arresting and in a few years would be devastating.

“George?” she gasped.

“Good morning, my lady.” He took the broom from her. “I’ll finish this.”

She tried to reconcile the filthy urchin with the flawless blueblood prince and failed. The pieces simply didn’t fit together.

“Terrible, isn’t it?” Kaldar shook his head in mock resignation. “Look at the caliber of the competition I have to deal with. You know, women under twenty-five don’t even notice me anymore when I tow him around.”

George rolled his eyes.

“You’re married,” Richard reminded him.

“I was complaining in a purely hypothetical sense.” Kaldar turned to Richard. “What are you cooking? Did you make enough for everybody?”

“You won’t be left unfed, don’t worry.” Richard jerked the pan up in a sharp motion. A pancake flew in the air and flipped back into the pan.

“The least you can do is feed me. I brought your information.” Kaldar shook the file. “My wife stole it for you from our illustrious spy agency, and we spent the whole night copying it by hand, then taking it back to the Mirror . . .”

“He has an imager at his house,” George said. “It took him less than half an hour to copy everything.”

“Traitor child.” Kaldar dropped the file on the counter. “A gift for you, my ever-so-serious elder sibling.” He made an elaborate flourish with his hand, and a piece of paper popped into his fingers out of thin air. Richard put the wooden spoon down and opened the paper. His face showed nothing. He looked at it for a long moment and passed it to her.

It was Richard’s image captured with an imager and printed on paper with the word HUNTER printed at the top. The shot had caught him in a moment of battle. He’d just swung his sword, and the body in front of him was still falling. Blood spatter stained his skin. His hair flared, moving from the momentum of his turn. His face looked serene.

“Where did you get this?” Richard asked.

“While I was procuring your information, I happened to be by Rodera. She’s a hell of a city, and I made an excursion into her gutters and ruffled through her skirts. The slavers are passing this around. You are busted. How many times have I told you to wear a mask? Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

Half an hour later, when they finished the omelet Richard made, Kaldar had made at least ten jokes, told them a funny story about his wife, and made fun of Louisiana’s ambassador. She understood why Richard got a slightly tense look on his face when he mentioned his brother. They were polar opposites. Kaldar, being the life of the party, had no urge to explore the virtues of dignity and restraint, while Richard had no desire to entertain others with his wit or draw attention to himself.

“I suppose we should start,” Kaldar said.

George dragged a large freestanding corkboard into view.

Mirth drained from Kaldar’s face. “Now then.”

He opened the leather file and began pinning images to the board, five in all. Charlotte felt a pang of regret. She still saw Tulip in her dreams, but now, when she awoke, Richard held her, and the feeling of lying next to him was indescribable. He never said it, but the way he looked at her, the way he listened, the way they gave pleasure to each other made her feel loved, and deep inside her, a pathetic little hope had reared its head. She hated herself for that hope. It chipped at her resolve and at his. This path demanded sacrifices. They both knew it. They had both agreed to accept it. But each moment she had him to herself felt like a gift. Now that hope was dying, and its death throes brought her at once relief and a sickening fear.

“Lord Casside.”

Kaldar pointed to the first image. A dark-haired man with a strong profile stared back at them.

“Minor nobility, of the lesser-known branch of the Dweller family. An only son and a self-made man. About five years ago, he quietly began to liquidate his assets and invest all of his money into Blackwolf Imports and Exports.”

“Blackwolf?” Richard grimaced.

“Not really an imaginative guy.” Kaldar tapped the picture. “You were right, by the way. Height, weight, skin and eye color. Everything is consistent. If it wasn’t for the nose and the chin, he could be part of the family.”

“What family?” Charlotte asked.

“Our family,” Richard said. “I’ll explain in a minute.”

“Then we have Earl Maedoc.”

Kaldar tapped the second picture. On it, an older man glowered, his features harsh, his stare direct. His gray hair was shorn close to his scalp, and his hooded eyes looked unfriendly.

“Veteran of the Adrianglian Army, decorated, praised, respected. He oversees recruiting efforts. He also supplies new muscle to the slavers.”

“Being in charge of the recruiting allows him to weed out those unsuitable to military service,” George said. “Those with a penchant for sadism, for example. He steers them toward the slavers.”

“Lady Ermine.”

Kaldar touched the next image. A woman in her late twenties. Delicate bone structure, coils of caramel hair, narrow eyes but a rare, highly prized color: a translucent light green.

“Another investor. Lady Ermine also takes a special interest in female slaves. She selects several each season and trains them to increase their value.”

“How do you know this?” Richard asked.

“The Mirror has a list in her file, which she had forgotten in her room at one of the state functions. It details purchases of personal items, including slinky garments and various inappropriate but entertaining things for seven women with different garment sizes and detailed prescriptions for Midwife’s Bane . . .”

Those bastards.

“. . . which is apparently . . .”

“Used as a means of birth control.” Charlotte ground out, furious. “If the dose is large enough, it can cause damage to the lining of the uterus, rendering a woman infertile.” They were robbing the slave women of their fertility to prevent inconvenient offspring. She was infertile, and she understood the full enormity of their loss. She would crush that Ermine woman like a maggot under her shoe.

“What she said,” Kaldar said. “The names on the list had the flair of the Broken. There was a Britney, which doesn’t occur here that often, but there was also a Christina, which is a completely Broken name.”

Good point.

“Why?” George asked.

“Because it’s derived from the word ‘Christian,’” Charlotte said. “In the Broken, Jesus Christ was viewed as the son of God, and his followers are Christians. In the Weird, it was John the Nazarite, whose followers are called the Nazaratians. In the Weird, a Christina would be named Johanna.”

Kaldar shrugged. “It’s clear that at least some women on that list came from the Edge, if not from the Broken itself. There’s no logical reason for Angelia to have made that list, and when a covert Mirror operative posing as a servant attempted to return it, Lady Ermine claimed she had never seen it before. The Mirror put it into her file as an oddity. Now that we know she’s connected to the slave trade, it makes much more sense.”

Richard was staring at an image of an urbane, groomed blond man with sharp features and an overly elaborate haircut. There was a focused, predatory edge to his glare. “What about him?”

“Baron Oleg Rene.” Kaldar crossed his arms. His face had gained an unexpected vicious edge. “You wouldn’t believe who he’s related to. You see the family resemblance?”

“Spider.” Richard spat the word like it was poison.

“A distant cousin. How about that?”

The two men glared at that picture, the hate on their faces so similar, they looked like twins.

“The same Spider who killed Sophie’s mother?” Charlotte asked.

Kaldar nodded. “Rene is Spider’s younger half sister’s son, the Adrianglian branch of the family. Because of this inconvenient connection, he’s been blacklisted from military service, the Department of the Interior, and the Diplomatic Corps.”

“What does he do?” George asked.

“Arts, sports, and entertainment,” Kaldar said. “He travels around the country working as a glorified event planner. Organizes festivals, tourneys, and so on. The Department of the Interior has no issue with it as long as somebody else provides his security. He’s very good at it, apparently.”

“So he can move around the country pretty much at random,” Richard said.

Kaldar nodded. “I’m thinking they use him as a buyer / scout / trouble fixer.”

He turned to the last photograph. On it a man in his middle forties looked at the world with hazel eyes. He was handsome, with a masculine beauty that was just a shade too rugged to be perfect, and that slight roughness only added to his appeal. His expression was dignified but free of pretense. An engaging smile played on his lips and in his eyes, proclaiming loudly that this man was worthy of loyalty because he was good and would do the right thing. Its power was so pronounced, Charlotte felt compelled to smile back.

“Viscount Robert Brennan,” Kaldar said. “The main head of this twisted hydra.”

He sat down. “How do you want to go about it?”

“We need a confession,” Richard said. “Or at the very least, an admission of guilt.”

“Brennan is a tough nut to crack.” Kaldar’s face turned grim. “It’s not just that he’s a cousin of the king. He’s also popular. Blueblood ladies think he’s darling, and men think he’s a man’s man. He’s athletic, charming, funny, and they all love him. You’ll be fighting against the tide of public opinion.”

“Then we’ll need to turn it against him,” Richard said.

“How the hell are you going to do that?”

“Why can’t we simply remove him from the equation?” George asked.

“Because if we kill him, the organization wouldn’t die,” Richard told him. “Think of a monarchy. One king dies, another takes his place, but the institution survives.”

“Richard is right.” Charlotte rose.

The two men and a boy immediately stood up.

“Why did you get up?” she asked George.

“You’re a woman,” George answered.

“Yes, but what is the reason?”

“I don’t know.”

“You rose because hundreds of years ago, when a woman entered a room full of men, she wasn’t exactly safe. Especially if she was beautiful or had holdings. Our magic is just as deadly, but physically, an average male is stronger than an average woman, so when a woman entered the room, men who knew her stood up to indicate that they would shield her from danger. The three of you just declared yourself my protectors.”

They looked at her.

“A modern woman is hardly in danger of a direct assault,” Charlotte said. “So why do men still get up?”

George frowned.

Charlotte smiled at Kaldar. “You know, don’t you?”

“We get up because women like it.” Kaldar clapped George on the shoulder. “You don’t want to look like an unmannered bumpkin in front of a girl. And if you get up and she notices you, she might sit by you.”

“Exactly. There is no law that says men should rise, but you still do because women enjoy this show of attention. It’s so ingrained in your nature that when we first met, Richard refused to sit down until I did, even though he was half-dead at the time.”

Richard cleared his throat. “That’s a wild exaggeration. I was a quarter-dead, at most.”

Kaldar swiveled toward him and peered at his brother’s face. “That’s two jokes in less than an hour. You feeling all right?” he asked quietly. “Feverish, eh?”

“I’m fine. Get out of my face.”

Kaldar looked at her, then back at Richard, then at her again.

Charlotte sat down. The three men sat.

“The monarchy survives because the bluebloods like it,” she said. “Most Adrianglians like it. It’s an idea that appeals to them on some level. The king has less power than the collective Assembly or the Council, for example, so he can be overthrown. But we like to pretend we’re still a warrior nation under a single strong leader, and we idealize the throne and those who sit on it.”

“Or stand close,” Richard added.

“The bluebloods don’t fear laws,” she continued. “Some of us still think they don’t apply to us. We fear only public judgment. The public has judged the royal family to be paragons of virtue. We can’t fight that, or we’d have to rub the blueblood noses in the fact that their long bloodlines don’t bestow them with nobility of spirit the moment they pop out of their mothers.”

Richard nodded. “The bookkeeper on the island is a prime example—she was so committed to Brennan, her eyes practically glistened at the thought of him. In her mind, he could never do anything base.”

Their minds ran on parallel tracks. “We can’t fight the system,” Charlotte agreed. “But we can tarnish one individual. To crush the slaver ring, we have to get Brennan to admit to an act so base, so at odds with the standard of blueblood behavior, that society will have no choice but to judge him as defective. He will be viewed as a freak, unworthy of his pedigree. Anything he engaged in would become unclean. The bluebloods will destroy him just to escape the taint.”

“I like the way you think,” Kaldar said.

Richard nodded. “I agree. The public disdain and disgust must be so severe that it would cause a cry of outrage. The slave owners must recognize that being discovered would make them instant social pariahs. That’s the only way the institution of slavery can be rooted out.”

Richard rose and walked to the board. “Brennan built this organization. He made it efficient, resilient, and profitable. We don’t know why. He doesn’t need the money, and if it ever became public, he’d lose everything. Something must’ve compelled him to create it. He cares a great deal about it. When we fought the Hand, we suffered setback after setback, but we didn’t break until the end.”

A muscle jerked in Kaldar’s face. “Erian.”

The half brother Richard had mentioned. “I don’t understand,” Charlotte said.

“Our youngest brother betrayed the family to the Hand,” Kaldar said.

“What happened to him?”

“He disappeared,” Richard said.

“Richard let him go,” Kaldar told her. “He saw Erian walking away, and he let him go. We’ll all regret this one day, mark my words.”

“Back to Brennan. We make him think he’s being betrayed,” Richard said. “Make him think there is a coup and one of the others is trying to take over. It will drive him over the edge.”

“You’ll need at least two people for that,” Kaldar said. “A single person stirring up trouble is too easy to trace. You need at least two people pretending to act independently. And you’re right out, my dear brother, because your mug has by now reached Brennan’s desk.”

“I can do it,” Charlotte said. “They don’t know me. I don’t even have to pretend to be anyone but myself.”

“Okay, that’s one,” Kaldar said. “But I can’t help you and neither can Audrey. The Mirror would have our asses, and, besides, we’re on call. The Grand Thane Callis is marrying Marchesa Imelle de Lon in a month. Why couldn’t that old geezer find himself an Adrianglian woman to marry, I’ll never know. There is a realm full of old ladies waiting for him, but no, that old goat had to go to Louisiana to get himself a wife.”

The Grand Thane never concerned himself with playing by the rules. Roughly eighty years ago, when Rogan Brennan sat on the throne, his sister Solina Brennan married Jarl Ulrich Hakonssen of Vinland in the north. After Rogan, the crown passed to his son Olred, which made Jarl Ulrich Grand Thane, a title traditionally held by the king’s oldest uncle. As Grand Thane, he had defended the realm, leading the Adrianglian Army and Fleet to victories in the Ten Year’s War. Olred managed to get himself killed before he produced an heir. Because of Jarl Ulrich’s foreign birth, Solina couldn’t assume the throne, and their daughter Gallena became the monarch of Adrianglia. Now Gallena’s son sat on the throne. The Grand Thane was father to the previous queen and grandfather to the current king and Brennan, but he had kept the title that made him famous. Charlotte had seen him twice from afar: he was a massive, battle-scarred bear of a man, famous for his magic, physical might in battle, and roaring voice. Lady Solina had died almost fifteen years ago, and now he finally chose to remarry. She imagined he didn’t want to spend the twilight of his life alone.

“Anyone who is anyone in both Louisiana and Adrianglia will be at that wedding,” Kaldar continued. “The entire Mirror is on full alert.”

“That would be an excellent place to expose Brennan,” Charlotte thought out loud.

“It is, but I can’t be the one to do it. I tried to hint at it to Erwin, who is in charge of operations for my unit, and he shut me down, fast. You’re still short a player,” Kaldar said. “You need that overlap of influence. That’s the way that con works. You must work completely independently from two different angles toward a common goal.”

“Perhaps I—” George said.

“No,” all three of them answered in unison.

“You have your future to think about,” Charlotte told him. “If we fail, Brennan will make it his mission to ruin you in the most gruesome way possible.”

“Not only that,” Richard added, “but you are well-known and well connected. If you fall, you will drag your sister, your brother-in-law, and your brother down with you. You can help, George. But you must do it covertly.”

“We’re out of luck,” Kaldar said.

“Not if I become Casside,” Richard said.

What?

“Come again?” Kaldar asked.

“I’ve met him,” Richard said. “He wouldn’t be difficult to impersonate. You said yourself, there is a strong resemblance between us.”

“You’re good with prosthetics, I’ll give you that.” Kaldar crossed his arms. “But this isn’t some meeting in the middle of the night in a dimly lit tavern. You don’t look enough like him to pass, and if you glue shit to your face, it will be clearly visible in the bright lights of all those ballrooms.”

“Not if it’s under my skin,” Richard said.

She realized what he was saying. “Facial surgery?”

He nodded.

Charlotte stared at the picture, comparing the two faces. Richard’s chin was too sharp, his nose bridge too low, his features too defined, and the eyebrows too high . . . No, too much, too many differences. It would never work.

“You’re insane. Who’s going to do this?” Kaldar demanded.

“Dekart,” Richard said.

Kaldar frowned.

“Who is Dekart?” she asked.

“He is a defector from Louisiana,” Kaldar answered. “They were going to exile him for some creative surgeries, and he turned tail and ran across the border into the waiting arms of the Department of the Interior. What makes you think he’ll go for it?”

“I have access to the Camarine and Sandine combined finances,” Richard said. “Dekart needs money.”

“Ridiculous,” she told him. “You’re going to trust your face to some defector?”

“Charlotte is right. The man is an artist with a scalpel, but you’ll still die on the operating table,” Kaldar said.

“Not necessarily.” Richard looked at her.

No. Not in a million years. “Forget it.”

“Charlotte . . .”

“I said forget it!” She got up off her chair. “I would have to continuously heal you while the surgeon cut at your face. Look at your chin and look at his. It means cutting the living bone, Richard, and reshaping it. I will have to regrow it beyond its natural shape. Do you have any idea how difficult that is? I’ve assisted in reconstructive surgeries before. I know exactly what’s involved. What you’re proposing is suicide. There is no guarantee I can keep you alive. Best-case scenario, you would be disfigured. Worst case—dead. It’s too dangerous.”

He simply looked at her.

“It’s too dangerous, Richard. I won’t do it. One slip of the blade, one overlooked infection, and you’ll be gone.”

“Charlotte,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to assist. I can hire a healer.”

“First, then you will die for sure. Second, no healer is going to do this for you. It’s suicide.”

“What other way is there?”

“I don’t know, but this isn’t the way.”

“I’m willing to take the risk,” Richard said.

“I’m not!”

“I ask that you respect my commitment,” he said.

The words lashed at her. She had said the same thing to him when he tried to dissuade her from going with him. They had agreed that they would keep their relationship from interfering with the mission. If they hadn’t made love and he was simply a man she knew, she would caution against the operation, but she wouldn’t become borderline hysterical trying to prevent it.

But they had made love. And she was in love with him, whether he felt the same about her or not.

The words tore out of her before Charlotte could catch them, but she had summoned her poise, and when they came out, she said them calmly, with a touch of distance. “What if I lose you?”

“You won’t. You’re the best healer of your generation.”

RICHARD lay prone on the table under the harsh sterile light of the surgeon’s lamp. From this position, he had an excellent view of Dekart, a short, lean man, dressed in surgeon’s robes. His face had a look of complete concentration as he reviewed his instruments. On the table in front of him, an imager presented Casside’s face, enlarged to twice its normal size. The imager captured one’s likeness completely, and Dekart was very good.

Charlotte stood next to the surgeon. Her face was glacially cold, her iced-over beauty almost sharp enough to cut. He was on the receiving end of the coldest stare he had ever seen.

Dekart’s daughter-assistant tightened the last leather belt, pulling Richard’s left arm tight against the surface of the table. The buckle clicked, locking. He was strapped in.

“Suicide,” Charlotte said.

Richard smiled at her.

Ever since he pointed out that she was thinking with her emotions, Charlotte had shut them down. She had argued for three days with cold, flawless logic, trying to overwhelm him with facts. She explained the operation in detail as they sat by the fire. She found an anatomy volume on the shelf and detailed how easily a scalpel could cause damage. She threatened him with the lingering, chronic pain that came with reshaped bones and nerve damage. And when they made love, she took his breath away. She was trying to give him a reason to back off.

She had no idea she only made it worse. He wanted to keep her away from using the darker side of her magic at any cost. He had come up with a plan that would call for him to bear almost all of the danger. She wouldn’t have any cause to kill anyone. It hinged on his having Casside’s face, and so he had listened to everything she said and acknowledged the full validity of her arguments, but he refused to budge.

Dekart began drawing lines on Richard’s face, holding the ink stick in gloved hands. “How proficient are you in healing, my lady?” His voice was soft and quiet. A slight Louisiana accent tinted his words.

“I’m the Healer,” she said in a brisk tone.

“I understand you are a healer,” he said.

“Not ‘a.’ ‘The,’” she said.

Dekart glanced at her. “You will forgive me if I don’t believe you. The Healer worked miracles until she retired. Still, you must have some ability, since my patient places such confidence in you. Such procedures are . . . quite gruesome. I ask that you restrain yourself from healing until I ask, or you will prematurely heal the changes I will make.”

Charlotte fixed Richard with a deadly gaze. “If you die, I’m coming after you. Don’t expect a peaceful afterlife.”

It must be excruciating for her, he realized. If their roles were reversed, and she lay on the table, while he was forced to watch her face being cut open and mop up the blood, could he do it?

“Dekart, give us a minute.”

The surgeon gave a one-shouldered shrug, and he and his assistant stepped out.

“Did you have a moment of clarity?” she asked. “Should I undo the belts?”

“I’m sorry for making you do this. It must be difficult for you.” He couldn’t let her realize why he was doing it. If he did die, she would never forgive herself.

Her narrow eyebrows rose. “Have a care, my lord Mar. First you ignore my advice, now you insult me. I assure you that watching living flesh sliced by a surgeon is nothing new to me. Contrary to your expectations, you are not that special.”

She was furious with him. “If I could trade places with you, I’d . . .”

Her eyes sparked with anger. He’d clearly said the wrong thing.

She reached over and slapped him.

“If you could trade places with me, I’d die on the operating table. You deposited the responsibility for your survival on my shoulders against my will. Don’t offer me empty platitudes.” She turned away from him and walked out of his field of vision. “He’s ready.”

The door swung open. A moment later, Dekart loomed over him. “Please don’t damage the patient. If you feel the need to injure him, kindly do it on other parts of his body.”

“I’ll heal it before you start,” came the icy reply.

A cold needle punctured his arm.

“I will count to ten,” Dekart said. “I want you to repeat the numbers after I say them. Ten.”

“Ten.”

The room grew fuzzy. “Nine.”

“Nine.”

“Eight.” Dekart’s voice sounded as if coming over a great distance.

“Eight,” Richard whispered.

“Seven.”

The light blinked out. Everything went dark.

“Look at me.”

A voice called him. Richard swam toward it through the endless colorless water. He wasn’t sure whose voice it was, but it had awakened him, and now he moved. A small part of him wondered why he wasn’t drowning and where the surface was, but those questions were too faint to need his attention.

Below him, darkness gaped. It was reaching for him, its long tendrils twisted, ready to coil and pull him under. He knew it wasn’t death. Death was nowhere near. It was something else. As he swam, he felt its coldness, spreading through the waters underneath. It smelled like blood, he realized.

He wasn’t afraid of it. Far from it, it felt familiar, as if it were a part of him.

“Richard?”

Charlotte . . . He spun around in the water looking for her. Where are you, love? The water stretched out on all sides of him, a transparent eternity.

“Come back to me, Richard.”

I’m trying. I’m trying, my sweetheart. I’m looking for you.

“Come back to me.”

He felt warmth on his skin and turned toward it. A luminescent golden glow suffused the crystalline depth. He swam into it.

The darkness chased him. The icy restraints of its tentacles wound about his legs. It pulled, but the light anchored him, refusing to let him go.

“Come back to me, Richard.”

I love you, he wanted to tell her. Don’t let me go.

“Come back.”

He pushed away. The darkness broke. The torn shreds of its tentacles burned into his skin, long black marks. He knew they would be there forever. He kicked his legs and swam into the light.

His eyes opened, and he saw Charlotte leaning over him, her eyes luminescent. She had saved him. He wanted to tell her, but pain claimed his mouth, pooling in his jawbone.

She took his hand and kissed his fingers. He realized that the restraints were gone.

Dekart leaned against the cart with instruments. He looked ill.

Richard fought through the pain. “How did it go?”

“My finest work,” the surgeon said. He pushed from the cart and bowed to Charlotte. “It was an honor.”

“For me as well,” she told him.

Dekart turned on his foot and left the room.

Charlotte bent over him. He saw tears in her eyes and opened his mouth. She put her fingertips on his lips.

“Be quiet,” she whispered, and kissed him. He tasted tears and desperation on her lips. She held on to him for a long moment and let go, pulling on her composure like a mask. He almost wished she hadn’t.

“Would you like a mirror?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes.”

She nodded at the hand he was gripping. “You have to let me go.”

“No.”

She smiled back at him and sat in a chair. Ten minutes later, he finally decided she wouldn’t dissolve into nothing and released her hand. She brought a mirror. A strange man looked back at him. He could still see the old shadows of himself. His eyes were the same. Possibly his eyebrows, and even his forehead. The rest belonged to Casside.

“It’s not me,” he said.

“That’s what you wanted,” Charlotte reminded him.

“Does it bother you?”

“Your new face?”

He nodded.

She sighed. “It bothers me that you risked your life for it. But I don’t care whose face you’re wearing, Richard.”

He realized he loved her, painfully, intensely, with the desperation of a dying man eager for every last moment of life.