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I take a deep breath. This is it. There is no turning back from this point. If I reveal the secret Eryx trusted me to keep, his life is forfeit.

But that anger and betrayal is too strong for me to stop now. So I push ahead.

“Because the constabulary cannot remove him by force from the estate. You see, he is the spawn of a devil.” And the rest finally comes out. Eryx’s powers and true heritage. His strength. His bodyguards. The weaknesses I know of. The more I talk, the more Kallias’s face grows troubled.

“You are earnest?” he asks, looking between me and his equally surprised wife.

“I swear I do not lie. My manservant out in the hallway can confirm it. He’s seen the beast, too.”

After a moment’s pause, Kallias asks, “Has he hurt you?”

My neck flares with sensation at the memory of his teeth, but I answer truthfully, “Physically, no.”

“Is he violent toward anyone else?”

I think about disclosing the fact that Eryx was the one who murdered the general and several others, but for some reason, I decide to keep that to myself.

“He’s dangerous, to be sure. He has limited control over himself at times, but I have yet to see him lose control and attack anyone.” The time he saved me doesn’t count. “I… just thought you would want to know. You claim the shadows are a divine right to rule, do you not? If others have powers, doesn’t that hurt your rule?”

Kallias cocks his head to one side. “So you came because you are worried his existence makes my kingship vulnerable? Has he threatened me?”

I think about the list of names in the cellar.

But Eryx said he wasn’t going to pursue the last name. The king. If he was telling the truth. It’s not like he hasn’t lied to me hundreds of times before.

“I am doing this because he’s taken what’s mine. If dispatching him benefits you, too, then I am happy for it.”

Kallias looks to my sister, and I cannot read the silent conversation they have.

“Then I will take care of him,” Kallias says simply as he rises from his seat.

Alessandra reaches out with a death grip on his hand. He looks down at her.

“I will be all right. So long as you stay here, he cannot hurt me. Do you not wish for me to protect your sister?”

The question is terrifying, because I realize that if she told him not to protect me, he would listen. Her wants are far more important to him than my life. That is abundantly clear by the way he is looking at her.

She only pauses for the briefest moment, looking between me and her husband, before nodding. “We will be here.”

Just like that, Kallias leaves us, though Demodocus remains at my sister’s side. She reaches down to scratch him behind the ears.

I’m left with guilt flooding my body. I want to fix things with my sister, but now I’ve thrown her husband into danger’s way.

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

“Don’t be. He means it. As long as I stay here, he is invulnerable to death.”

But Eryx isn’t. No, I just signed his death warrant.

My legs begin to bounce again, and I fiddle with my skirts. Alessandra hesitates only a moment before rising from her sofa and joining me on mine. She doesn’t touch me, but her presence is a comfort I didn’t know I needed.

“Tell me about him. This Eryx,” she says. “Has he treated you poorly?”

“We argue. A lot. He can be spiteful. He took away my stipend just because I called him an orphan. Oh you should have seen the state the dukedom was in before I had leave to pretty it up.”

It relaxes me to talk, to tell her about all the changes I made. I even feel better talking about Eryx. Reminding myself of the awful things he’s done and why it’s okay to be rid of him.

He professed to like me, to talk of a future together—when he deceived me like no other has.