He’d lost the sapphire above his eye and gained a new scar in its place. It didn’t wink in the sun, but it suited him anyway. The silver threads that traced over his skin, relics of the shadow king’s poison, shone with their own faint light.

I rather like the silver, Rhy had said.

Alucard rather liked it, too.

His fingers felt bare without his rings, but the only absence that mattered was the silver feather he’d worn wrapped around his thumb. The mark of House Emery.

Berras had survived the fog unscathed—which was to say he’d fallen to it—and woken in the street with the rest, claiming he had no memory of what he’d said or done under the shadow king’s spell. Alucard didn’t believe a word of it, had kept his brother’s company only long enough to tell him of the estate’s destruction and Anisa’s death.

After a long silence, Berras had said only, “To think, the line comes down to us.”

Alucard had shaken his head, disgusted. “You can have it,” he’d said, and walked away. He didn’t throw the ring at his brother, as good as that would have felt. Instead he simply dropped it in the bushes on his way out. The moment it was gone, he felt lighter.

Now, as the doors to the Rose Hall swung open, he felt dizzy.

“The king will see you,” said the royal guard, and Alucard forced himself forward, the velvet bag hanging from his fingers.

* * *

The hall wasn’t full, but it wasn’t empty, either, and Alucard suddenly wished he’d requested a private meeting with the prince—the king.

Vestra and ostra were gathered, some waiting for an audience, others simply waiting for the world to return to normal. The Veskan entourage was still confined to its quarters, while the Faroan assembly had divided, half sailing home with Lord Sol-in-Ar, the others lingering in the palace. Councilors, once loyal aides to Maxim, stood ready to advise, while members of the royal guard lined the hall and flanked the dais.

King Rhy Maresh sat on his father’s throne, his mother’s empty seat beside him. Kell stood at his side, head bowed over his brother in quiet conversation. Master Tieren was at Rhy’s other side, looking older than ever, but his pale blue eyes were sharp among the hollows and wrinkles of his face. He rested a hand on Rhy’s shoulder as he spoke, the gesture simple, warm.

Rhy’s own head was tipped down as he listened, the crown a heavy band of gold in his hair. There was sadness in his shoulders, but then Kell’s lips moved, and Rhy managed a fleeting smile, like light through clouds.

Alucard’s heart lifted.

He scanned the room quickly and saw Bard leaning against one of the stone planters, cocking her head the way she always did when she was eavesdropping. He wondered if she’d picked any pockets yet this morning, or if those days were over.

Kell cleared his throat, and Alucard was startled to realize that his feet had carried him all the way to the dais. He met the king’s amber eyes, and saw them soften briefly with, what—happiness? concern?—before Rhy spoke.

“Captain Emery,” he said, his voice the same, and yet different, distant. “You requested an audience.”

“As you promised I might, Your Majesty, if I returned”—Alucard’s gaze flicked to Kell, the shadow at the king’s shoulder—“without killing your brother.”

A murmur of amusement went through the hall. Kell scowled, and Alucard immediately felt better. Rhy’s eyes widened a fraction—he’d realized where this was going, and he had obviously assumed Alucard would request a private meeting.

But what they’d had—it was more than stolen kisses between silk sheets, more than secrets shared only by starlight, more than a youthful dalliance, a summer fling.

And Alucard was here to prove it. To lay his heart bare before Rhy, and the Rose Hall, and the rest of London.

“Nearly four years ago,” he began, “I left your … court, without explanation or apology. In doing so, I fear I wounded the crown and its estimation of me. I have come to make amends with my king.”

“What is in your hand?” asked Rhy.

“A debt.”

A guard stepped forward to retrieve the parcel, but Alucard pulled away, looking back to the king. “If I may?”

After a moment, Rhy nodded, rising as Alucard approached the dais. The young king descended the steps and met him there before the throne.

“What are you doing?” asked Rhy softly, and Alucard’s whole body sang to hear this voice, the one that belonged not to the king of Arnes, but to the prince he’d known, the one he’d fallen in love with, the one he’d lost.

“What I promised,” whispered Alucard, gripping the mirror in both hands and tipping its surface toward the king.

It was a liran.

Most scrying dishes could share the contents of one’s mind, ideas and memories projected on the surface, but a mind was a fickle thing—it could lie, forget, rewrite.

A liran showed only the truth.

Not as it had been remembered, not as one wanted to remember it, but as it had happened.

It was no simple magic, to sift truth from memory.

Alucard Emery had traded four years of his future for the chance to relive the worst night of his past.

In his hands, the mirror’s surface went dark, swallowing Rhy’s reflection and the hall behind him as another night, another room, took shape in the glass.

Rhy stiffened at the sight of his chamber, of them, tangled limbs and silent laughter in his bed, his fingers trailing over Alucard’s bare skin. Rhy’s cheeks colored as he reached out and touched the mirror’s edge. As he did, the scene flared to life. Mercifully, the sound of their pleasure didn’t echo through the throne room. It stayed, caught between them, as the scene unspooled.