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The wards remember who I used to be—loyal, useful, harmless.

I wonder if they’ll still open once they learn I’m none of those things anymore.

She’s waiting for me.

Of course she is. Amarantha has always been three moves ahead, and desperate family members are as predictable as sunrise.

“Cousin.” She doesn’t look up from the delicate tea service arranged on her desk with mathematical precision. Steam rises from porcelain that costs more than most Fae earn in a decade. “You look dreadful, darling. When did you last sleep? Eat something that wasn’t born from desperation?”

Her voice wraps around my thoughts like silk scarves, beautiful and suffocating. My shoulders drop without permission. The desperate knot in my chest loosens by degrees, and I catch myself leaning forward, seeking more of whatever relief she’s offering.

“I need to know about tonight’s trial.” The words come out rougher than intended, betraying the emotion I’m trying to control.

“Such urgency.” She settles back with her own tea, violet eyes studying my face with clinical precision wrapped in false warmth. “You’re so frightened, cousin. So lost. It breaks my heart to see family suffering when I could help.”

My body betrays me before my mind catches up. The relief floods my system like honey in my veins, golden and thick and wrong. She sees my pain when others are too busy with their own concerns.

“The trial requirements—” I start.

“Oh, darling.” Her laugh sounds like breaking bells, soft and musical and somehow wrong. “Is that really what you came here for? Legal technicalities? Or did you come because you finally realized that all your passionate friends are going to let her die while they debate politics in dusty archives?”

Her words taste like honey and starlight on my tongue, coating my throat until swallowing becomes effort. My confusion becomes evidence of their neglect. My desperate attempt to find solutions becomes proof that I’m the only one who truly cares.

“They’re trying to save her?—”

“Are they?” She leans forward her interest disguised as maternal concern. “Because from where I sit, it looks like three powerful men who’ve spent hours feeling sorry for themselves instead of taking decisive action. How many books have you read, cousin? How many legal precedents researched? And what solutions have you found?”

The question lands like acid on an open wound. Because she’s right. Hours of research, and I have nothing.

“The situation is impossible?—”

“Nothing is impossible for people who understand how to sacrifice properly.” The air thickens around us, charged with Seelie magic that makes my thoughts sluggish, compliant. “The problem, sweet cousin, is that you’re all so afraid of making the hard choices. So paralyzed by wanting to save everyone that you’ll end up saving no one.”

Her hand reaches across the table to touch mine, and the moment her skin makes contact, something shifts in my mind. Not thoughts changing, but priorities becoming... clearer. More focused on her wisdom.

Understanding detonates through my nervous system. The Crown erupts against my ribs, ancient power recognizing atrap centuries in the making. My empathic training screams warnings—emotional pressure here, false warmth there, artificial comfort bleeding through every gesture.

“What hard choices?” The words feel sluggish, like speaking through honey, but underneath, golden fire begins to claw up my spine.

“She needs someone to make decisions for her, darling. Someone who understands political reality better than she does.” Amarantha’s grip tightens just enough to remind me she’s controlling this conversation. “Someone who loves her enough to ensure her survival, even if it means accepting outcomes she’s too young and stubborn to choose wisely.”

“What outcomes?”

“Binding, of course. Service to a court that can protect her from forces she doesn’t understand.” Her smile carries warmth that feels like drowning. “It’s not ideal, but survival rarely is. The question is whether you love her enough to help facilitate the choice that saves her life.”

Magic claws through my defenses without permission, reshaping thoughts that should be mine alone. Her influence tastes like roses blooming in consecrated graves—beautiful poison that makes submission feel like choice.

But I can feel what she’s doing now. The subtle emotional pressure, the way she’s reshaping my responses. And beneath my diplomatic training, heat builds behind my ribs as careful composure fractures completely.

“That’s not love,” I say, voice carrying new steel. “That’s control.”

“Oh, sweet cousin.” For just a heartbeat, her perfect mask slips. Something raw flickers across her features—a wound that never healed, terror that someone might leave her the way others did. Her fingers tighten around her teacup until porcelainthreatens to crack. “You still think love and control are different things. How naive. How... dangerous.”

She releases my hand and returns to her tea, and the sudden absence of her touch feels like abandonment despite the poison it carried.

“Love without guidance is chaos, darling. Love without structure becomes destruction.” Her voice holds the weight of absolute certainty. “True love means taking responsibility for someone’s choices when they’re too confused to choose wisely.”

“She’s not confused?—”