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Though it wasn’t smart given recent events, a piece of me wished I had reading supplies so I could search the Mystique Second’s fate for any indication that he’d gotten out of the archives. But apparently my room had been stripped of anything useful in the months since I’d been gone.

When had that happened? Was it following the Battle of Damenal, when I revealed I’d been the one to read the darkness shrouding Ophelia during the Rapture last spring? Had Titus stopped trusting me entirely then, or had it taken more time to devolve?

Perhaps it was only recently, once word reached him that I was back in Starsearcher Territory and had not come to him?

Perhaps he’d never intended for me to return here at all.

The readings I’d seen of him destroying priceless artifacts and ancient works of art played through my mind again. What would happen to shove the chancellor I used to admire into that madness?

It was possible he’d been on that road for much longer than I cared to acknowledge.

The door to my suite swung open, and I whirled, half expecting to see Titus striding in here, pretending to be relieved and charmed by my presence.

It wasn’t him, though. An unsettling disappointment swooped through me. How was I still so dependent on Titus’s approval after everything I’d acknowledged about him?

A question for a later time because the person entering my chamber had a heat rivaling starfire churning in my gut.

“What are you doing here, Harlen?” I sneered. “Why in the everlasting Fates are you working with Titus? And how?”

“Vale, are you all right?” He strode confidently toward me, as if he was allowed access to my bedchamber without question.

“Now you care?” I asked icily, lifting a brow. I crossed my arms to keep myself from hitting him.

Harlen flinched. “I have always cared about you.”

“Enough to lock me up.” The reminder had my fingers curling into my velvet cloak. My throat tightened.

Taking a slow breath, I looked up at the skylight and tried to pretend I stood in my hot springs, nothing but trees and a star-speckled sky for miles. I imagined the scent of washed stone and bergamot, the warm water lapping at my bare skin and steam wafting through the air, curling the tendrils of my hair along my temples.

“That’s what you think I did?” Harlen asked, exasperation pitching his voice and breaking my meditation.

I closed my eyes and said goodbye to that safe space amid the jungle.

“It may not seem that way to you. But look around.” I turned back toward the balcony doors, Harlen following. “I am not free within these walls.” I placed one hand against the glass. “These views may be freedom for some, displaying the world and dreams waiting beyond, but I feel them like slices against my skin.”

His brows pulled together. “What are you talking about?”

“I have always been a prisoner here.” I glared at him, voice low. “I didn’t realize it for many years, and my life here was certainly better than in the temple, but there were common rights I was still not granted. Things I didn’t even think to ask for after living in fear.”

Harlen scoffed. “I heard of your triumphs, Vale. Of how you were named the youngest apprentice in Starsearcher history, most likely to take Titus’s position decades from now.” He stepped closer, but I didn’t retreat, only kept one hand against the glass. “How you were his precious little pet he paraded to the Raptures.”

Understanding ignited a flickering spark in my brain. “You’re jealous?”

Harlen was quiet, his lips pressing together exactly as they used to when we were children. His hands fisted at his sides.

Sixteen years may have passed, and yet Harlen had all the same tells.

He likely had the same desires, too. He was trying to fill that basic need for affection, for nurturing and unconditional love. The things we’d both thought Titus was giving me as a girl—a father when I had been ripped from mine too young.

Harlen had missed me when I left Lumin, and he had allowed bitterness to fester in the space I left behind.

Though I was wary, I understood how that could happen. We had only been children after all. And it was that mental image of a younger us, so hopeful about getting away from the temple, that dulled the edge of the anger within me.

“Harls,” I sighed. “I missed you every day of those first few years here. And then, as I grew older, I convinced myself you were better off at the temple without me. They never wanted you for your magic the way they did me.”

His head tilted curiously.

“I told myself our paths were better unwound,” I continued. “You would not be dragged down by the possessive battles over my magic.”