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H ellebore only had a month left. She pushed aside all emotion and immersed herself wholly in the rot.

Any time Taiyo tried to raise a concern, she gave him a cold look and told him that if he didn’t want to die, he needed to trust her. With how little time there was left, it always shut him up.

She was getting closer; she could feel it in her bones.

She could see it in the rotting irises. She had the right components. She just didn’t have the right ratios.

She needed to figure out what combination would be powerful enough to cleanse the rot away without killing the irises as well in the process, while also needing a tincture that would revive them within a small number of doses. She’d tried experimenting with a longer time period, but even at a lower dose, too many doses just killed the irises without killing the rot first.

She was nose deep in one of her old notebooks, reading by candlelight in Taiyo’s bed. He had one arm draped over her side, fingers idly playing with the silk fabric of her nightgown. She ignored his gaze on her. She’d told him to take the sedative and go to bed, but he stayed awake, just staring at her.

She flipped the page, and he groaned softly behind her.

“Keep that up and I’ll pour the sedative down your throat myself.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t.” Hellebore looked over her shoulder at him, lifting her arm to show him the charcoal in her hand. “I would transmute it into you before you could stop me.”

He pressed his hand flat against her stomach and in a swift move, shifted them both until he was leaning against the headboard and she was against his chest, sitting between his legs. He rested his head on her shoulder, murmuring into her ear, “If you insist on reading this when we should be sleeping, then you’ll have to endure me reading it as well.”

“Be my guest,” Hellebore said, sighing. “Maybe you’ll see something I’ve missed.”

She continued reading her account of her research from her last year at the academy. She had never been able to put her finger on why the rot affecting the irises was familiar to her. It didn’t act the same way the types of diseases she’d studied did. Was it because the plants were magical?

No. If that were the case, it wouldn’t have been affecting the other plants the same way. It was something about the rot itself.

She flipped a page and Taiyo stiffened against her when some of the first words were “Aunt Palladia.”

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye as he skimmed over the page detailing how Aunt Palladia had been helping her develop a way to transmute the disease into a portable form to be able to potentially turn it into a weapon by poisoning an enemy’s crops.

His arms around her waist tightened just a hair, but it was enough of an excuse for her to lower her notebook and shift so she could see his face fully.

“Alright, seriously, when are you going to tell me what happened between you and my aunt?”

He sighed, leaning his head back against the wood. “I’ve been trying to wait for the right time. It’s… I don’t want to fight.”

“Is there something to fight about?” Hellebore asked, setting her notebook to the side.

“She’s your aunt.”

“Yes, I am aware of that. I’ve spent a good portion of my life trying to be her.”

Taiyo’s eyes narrowed. “You and your aunt could not be further apart. You are not like her.”

Hellebore raised an eyebrow. “Now, we both know that’s not true.”

Taiyo fell silent.

She whispered, “You just don’t want me to be like her.”

Again, she was met with silence.

“Do you think I’ll automatically take her side?”

“It’s… complicated. I want to tell you…” Taiyo sighed. “When I first met her… it wasn’t long after I had just become king. Haruko and I traveled to Chymes when your father took the throne. It was my first time ever having to be king outside of Iubar.”

“And my aunt can smell weakness a mile away.”

“I was idealistic. I was young. So young, I was almost still a child in my people’s eyes. If your people had understood how we mature in comparison to yours, they would have seen me as one. I wanted to believe the best of Chymes, that the alchemists weren’t still the same as they had once been in the stories we’d been raised on. Haruko thought I was foolish and insisted on coming with me. Your father wasn’t friendly, even then, but he was what I’d hoped for. A king of the alchemists who wanted to have a good relationship with Iubar and keep war from happening between us again. I… I thought your aunt was of the same mind as your father. I trusted her. I shouldn’t have.”

“You were an unfortunate casualty then of her disagreements with my father. I don’t think either of them have ever agreed on anything.”

Taiyo snorted softly. “It was more than that. I should have known better. I should have listened to Haruko when she tried to advise me, but I wanted to believe differently.”

“What happened?”

“Your aunt… she never saw us elves as people. She looked at us the way you look at your plants.”

The tension in his voice silenced any follow-up questions she might have had. Whatever her aunt had done to him or Haruko, maybe it wasn’t something to speak about.

Everything was starting to make more sense.

She lowered her voice. “I shouldn’t have said you were an experiment.”

“You didn’t mean it,” Taiyo whispered. “I know you didn’t.”

“Still, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

Taiyo shifted again, pulling his gaze away. “Don’t… Don’t.”

What?

Hellebore watched as he stared at his desk in the corner. “I’m not… I’m not innocent. I… I’ve used what happened in the past to justify myself time and time again. But that doesn’t change what I’ve done or make it right.”

“Taiyo, what are you talking about?”

He turned back to her. “If I was in the wrong, what would you do?”

Had both he and her aunt been guilty twenty-five years ago?

“You mean like the things you did in order to marry me and secure my help?”

“Yes. Hellebore, if I told you… If I had done something awful, truly despicable… If I hurt you, would you forgive me?” Taiyo closed his eyes. “Or would you let me die?”

“I’m not letting you die.”

“But would you forgive me?”

“Do you want to put your life at risk by telling me something you know will make me angry with you and distract me from focusing on this cure? Or will you let me focus on curing the irises and trust me to figure the rest out afterwards?”

Taiyo nodded.

“Besides, I refused to let you die even when I thought you were actively kidnapping me—and you were—and I got over it eventually. Have a little faith.”

She squirmed out of his grip just enough to set her notebook to the side and blow out the candle. As they both settled back down to sleep, Hellebore rested her head on his heart to measure the beats. He ran his fingers through her hair, brushing his thumb over her rounded ears. She was thankful the darkness hid her blush.

“Speaking of afterwards,” Taiyo murmured, “maybe you’ll be ready to write to your brother? Or even invite him here? Surely you can’t stay mad at him forever.”

“One problem at a time. Go to sleep.”

Hellebore was fairly certain she was the one who fell asleep first as Taiyo’s ministrations steadied her.

Whatever it was… if he was able to forgive her for using their iris, surely his secrets couldn’t be so bad? And if they were… Well, Hellebore would have to save him first to find out.