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The machines were sold. Tiny piles of coins stood where Elena’s creations once sat. The house where love had bloomed withered like a plant, the colour shrinking from the walls, the stone puckering.

There was a wedding, a facade of warmth, then trunks that packed themselves and a long, long train journey to a city of smoke and metal.

And death, always death, circling over her like a raven of old.

She could not shake it, so she screamed at it instead.

Why why why? Why take them? Why was I spared? Why am I still here? What am I supposed to do?

“Live, Elena,” said a voice strangled with tears. “Just live. You don’t need to do anything else.”

But I want to, I want to. I have to, I have to.

“Take me home,” she whispered. “Take me home to Navarra.”

Even though she knew there was no going back, that her house wasn’t hers any more, that what she was chasing was a childhood long since past. No going back to that.

“It’s all right,” someone whispered, “it’s all right, Elena, you’re going to be fine—”

She wanted to believe that voice, but it soundedgood,and she’d stopped believing in good a long time ago.

People were talking around her. She didn’t recognise them. Didn’t recognise anything butPip,Pip beside her, holding her hand, stroking her hair.

They were discussing her. Where to take her. What to do with her. Pip demanded she stay where she was. They were calling him something. Something that wasn’t his name, but she couldn’t grab hold of the words long enough to make sense of it. Consciousness was a slippery demon. She wanted everything to vanish. All thoughts and feelings, all the tightness in her chest and limbs. Everything butPip.He could stay.

She didn’t know how long she hovered in that place of pain and nightmares. From time to time, she was aware of things happening, of drinks in her mouth, of needles in her arm. The feeling that stuck with her longest was the one of someone at her brow, applying something nice and cold, brushing her hair.

How long had it been since someone had touched her this way?

Don’t go,she wanted to cry.Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go.

But he did, of course. He had to.

He would have to go. Everyone always did.

Elena woke in a warm, soft bed, the mattress so deep she was almost swimming in it. The ceilings were unnaturally tall and painted to look like clouds brushed with gold. There was sky outside her window, too, bright blue, fringed with pink. Dawn, as gentle and natural as she could conceive it.

The room was filled with gilded furniture and plush cushions. Everything was ornate and beautiful, from the crystal flowers on the dresser to the dresser itself, the wooden feet carved to look like swans. Even the palace of Navarra could not boast such opulence.

She was in one of the guest rooms in the Petragradian palace.

Slowly, she turned her face towards the chair beside the bed. Pip was dozing in it, his ruffled shirt rolled up to the elbows, his eyes closed, his dark lashes fanned over his cheeks. They were darker than his soft brown-gold locks.

Elena smiled, shifting up in bed and reaching for the glass on her bedside. She drank the entire contents, gasping for breath. She still felt groggy, but lighter than she had in days.

Pip startled in his sleep, bright green eyes blinking. “Elena.” He spoke her name like a prayer. He shifted off his seat and sat down on her bed, hands not quite touching her. Elena wished he would.

“What happened?” she asked. “Where am I?”

“You were taken ill. You’ve been out of it for three days. The doctors say you need to rest.”

Three days. She’d been asleep for three days? What Snowdrop must be thinking, or the Baroness—

“My stepfamily—” She struggled against the covers.

Pip pressed a hand to her chest. “They’ve been informed,” he told her. “And compensated, if that’s something you’re concerned about.”

He said the last part bitterly. Not at her—at the Baroness and her priorities.