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“This is very clever of you, wife,” he says with something like awe in his voice. “And is there anything here about the bargain?”

My heart plummets. “No. And that’s what I need your help with.”

He looks at me, confused, waiting for me to explain.

“There’s nothing written in the book about the bargain, but I think there might be another way to access it. If I lay my hand on the book, I might have another vision like the one I had back in Joan’s tea shop.”

“Is that safe for you?” His eyes cloud with worry.

“Honestly? I’m not one hundred percent certain, but I think it’s the best way to move forward. Theonlyway I can think to move forward at this point.”

He doesn’t seem convinced. When he reaches out to touch the grimoire, I stop him with a firm hand clasped around his wrist.

“Maybe, uh, don’t touch that,” I tell him. “I’m not sure what would happen, but I’d rather have it be me than you.”

He looks troubled, but doesn’t argue with me. “How can I help you, then?”

Taking a deep breath, I strip off my gloves and crack my knuckles. “I think it would help me to have an anchor.”

I explain to him about the first book I touched in the library, how the magick wasn’t nearly as powerful as the grimoire’s, but how Vayla had to pull me back out. And in Joan’s shop, needing her steadying hand to bring me back out of wherever the grimoire took me.

“I’ll be your anchor,” Eren says immediately when I’m finished.

Even though it’s the reason I brought him here, and even though I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do it, I still hesitate before accepting. He’s got a realm to worry about. An entire court looking to him for guidance.

More important concerns than me.

I try to vocalize it, to tell him every single reason it’s a bad idea and give him a chance to reconsider, but I don’t get more than a sentence or two in before Eren stops me with a soft kiss.

Pulling away, he looks down at me with a faint smile on his lips. He cradles my head in his hands, sinking his fingers into my hair.

“Don’t you know?”

“Know what?” I ask. The words spark something in the back of my mind and draw up a memory I can’t quite grasp.

Keeping his hands where they are, he leans in and kisses the tip of my nose, the crest of a cheekbone, the middle of my forehead. There’s no hesitance on his face, no conflict, nothing other than sweet, gentle reassurance.

“Do you remember what you told me the night we met?” He rests his cheek against mine.

“I told you a lot of things,” I remind him, rubbing my nose along the line of his jaw.

“You told me you wouldn’t surrender your soul without getting mine in return.”

“Yes. I did say that.”

“And what did I ask you?”

Closing my eyes, I try to remember. The words come slow, even as the echo of all the emotions I felt that night rush back. Fear, arousal, anticipation, an endless ache in my soul. I’d been so wrapped up in him, so ready to give him each and every thing he asked for.

Save for my soul.

“You asked me ‘don’t you know?’” I whisper, remembering.

“Yes,” he says, pressing a kiss just below my ear.

What didn’t I know?

The same magick that’s been there since the beginning crests around us. A sparkle of light and temptation and forever. A thread, faint but gilded, stretching between us.