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“I mean,” Lore said quickly, “there were parts he was looking forward to.” She turned to Alie. “I know he was excited to see you again.”

Technically a lie—Gabe had told her no such thing—but it didn’t feel like one.

“Truly?” Alie dropped her hands with a sigh. “Because I feel I made a mess of it all. It’s just been such a shock, seeing him again. Seeing him so… so grown up.”

Bare chest in firelight, the shadow of an eye patch made darker by the brilliant blue staring down at her. Lore swallowed more too-hot tea. Grown-up indeed.

Memories closer at hand were less pleasant. The clench of his jaw as he read another seemingly useless book. The way he’d drawn inward in the past few days, always preoccupied by something he wouldn’t talk to her about.

“He was taken aback, too,” Lore said. “It’s been… complicated for him, I think.”

“More complicated than it would be for anyone else, probably.” Dani shook her head in sympathy. “Some of us thought he was coming back to court for good, at first. But it seems like he’s holding fast to those vows.”

Alie’s cheeks went pinker. “Being one of the Presque Mort is a lifelong appointment. Once you gain the ability to channel Mortem, it’s not like you can give it back.”

“But he could stop, couldn’t he? Stop channeling, leave the Presque Mort. I know they don’t allow such a thing, technically, but he is a duke.” Brigitte looked excitedly to Alienor. “He could get a dispensation from the Priest Exalted—”

“No.” Alie shook her head, firm and final. “No.”

And that was enough to make her friends stop, make them nod like the word carried far more meaning than a syllable should be able to shoulder.

Brigitte took a sip of tea and grimaced. “I wonder if Bastian has any wine stashed around here.”

“It’s Bastian, of course he does.” Danielle stood, holding out a hand for Brigitte. “Let’s look.”

“Searching through the Sun Prince’s rooms might be a bit too forward,” Brigitte said, brow arched.

“Not if we tell him it was for Alie and Eldelore.” Danielle gave them an exaggerated wink, to which Alie rolled her eyes.

“True.” Brigitte took Danielle’s proffered hand. “White or red, ladies?”

“Anything, as long as it’s sparkling,” Alie responded.

Brigitte bowed deeply, then she and Dani sauntered away, giggling over something.

“I apologize,” Alie murmured once the other two women were out of earshot. “I don’t know how many different ways I can tell them there’s nothing between Gabriel and me.”

“Because of what his father did?” Lore couldn’t quite make her voice sound neutral. It still made her heart twist, the way everyone here seemed so determined to nail the father’s sins to the son’s back.

Alie shook her head, then snorted a rueful, un-lady-like laugh. “Well, that’s part of it,” she said. “But honestly, I think perhaps that could’ve been salvaged. The thing that made it impossible was when he joined the Presque Mort.”

Gabe had said something similar. “Your father has always disliked the Church, then?” Lore tried to sound nonchalant, speaking from behind the rim of her china cup. She thought of what Gabe had told her when she asked the same question—complicated tangles of religion and politics, the belief that it should all be consolidated into one ruling body.

“I think my father dislikes almost everything.” Alie picked up a pastry, tore off the corner, and put both pieces down without eating one.

“It sounds like his beliefs have strained your relationship,” Lore said. “You and your father’s, I mean.”

“What relationship?” Alie asked darkly. She picked the pastry on her plate into smaller, still uneaten pieces. “Honestly, we don’t do much at home but pass each other in the halls, and barely even that when we’re at court. My mother died long ago, and I’m the only child.”

“That sounds lonely.” Lore knew loneliness. It covered everything she did, a spiderweb that couldn’t be seen but was impossible to free yourself from. It clung.

“Yes,” Alie murmured. “Yes, it is.”

“No pastries left, then?”

The voice was deep, familiar. Lore spun around to face Bastian’s easy grin. He braced his hands on the back of her chair, leaning over her, his shadow darkening her teacup.

The tension locking her shoulders leaked out, just a bit. Returning the book to his father’s study must’ve gone smoothly. Part of her had been worried he’d get caught and send all of this crashing down around their ears.