She turned to the stairs of the old chimney and began the winding descent down.

When she finally stood beside him on the second-floor observation deck and looked out over the vast, sparkling majesty of Paris on a winter evening, she had herself a little bit more under control.

D didn’t turn to look at her. He acknowledged her presence with a slight bow of his head, but that was all. They stood silently for a while, shoulder width apart, listening to people chatter in a dozen different languages, feeling the wind on their faces. Up here it was colder, the flakes of snow more biting than below.

“I have this memory of you,” he said in a low, solemn voice, still looking out over the city. She kept her own eyes on the view as well as he continued to speak. “You were sixteen, maybe seventeen. It was the winter solstice, and everyone had gathered in the great room after the ceremony in the temple for the feast of Horus.”

Eliana closed her eyes, remembering the cavernous great room they used on festival days, the smell of hot beeswax and incense, the glow of a thousand candles in iron braziers and chandeliers, the shouting and laughter, the heat of so many bodies pressed close together at long wooden tables as they feasted on suckling pig and roasted beef and delicacies from all over the world, brought in to celebrate the birthday of their patron god.

“You were sitting with your father and brother at the main table. I was standing behind you, against the wall, on duty as always. The Bellatorum had drawn straws to see who would stand guard during the feast, and I was the one who drew the short straw. It didn’t matter anyway; the rest of them had women they wanted to go to, but I had no one, so I didn’t mind.

“But you kept glancing back at me, with this worried look on your face. I didn’t dare look at you, but I couldn’t figure out why the king’s daughter, the precious spem futuri, would be paying the slightest attention to me.”

Hope for the future: that’s what the elders had called her, though she never knew exactly why. He went on and his voice grew softer, tinged with something close to awe.

“Then when your father was distracted by someone who’d come to speak with him, you called one of the servants to you and passed her something. You whispered something to her, and I could tell she was trying to talk you out of whatever you’d said. She looked very angry, but you insisted, and eventually she made some pretense to walk by me and hand me what you had given her.”

D glanced down at her. “An apple. You gave her an apple to give to me.”

“You looked hungry,” Eliana whispered. “You looked miserable, standing there alone. I thought you might like something to eat.”

“You kept sending her back, every chance you could, too, didn’t you? Pieces of fruit and cheese, bread, candy.”

“You wouldn’t eat any of it. I had to keep trying until I found something you liked.”

He turned to her, staring down at her with all the intensity from before still burning in his eyes. “I liked all of it. I couldn’t eat it because I was on duty, but I liked all of it. You were the only person in that room of thousands who gave a damn about me, the one person with the least reason to. You were kind to me. You noticed me. You looked at me, when everyone else went to great lengths to avoid doing that. Everyone else was terrified of me, and yet you never were. You smiled at me whenever we passed. You said hello.” His voice dropped. “You said my name. Said it like you liked it…like you liked me. That was the beginning for me. Just like that apple, you were this perfect, delicious thing I hungered for with every cell in my body, but was forbidden to eat.”

“Stop,” she whispered, frozen in place. “Please. Stop.”

They stood like that, not moving, a foot apart, his gaze searing, hers trained on some spot in the distance because she couldn’t bear to look at him.

Finally, around the lump in her throat, she said, “You brought it?”

From the corner of her eye she saw him nod. She held out her hand. He placed the paper-wrapped bundle in it, and she closed her fingers around it, hard. “I’m leaving now.”

“If—afterward—I’ll be at the same place I brought you after the police station. The safe house. You remember where it is?”

She glanced at him, her eyes as freezing as the wind. “I won’t come. Don’t wait.”

He said nothing, just looked at her. She slowly backed away, clutching the parcel to her chest. “I won’t come,” she said again, but he didn’t even nod.

Eliana turned and fled.

D did wait, though. His heart gave him no other choice.

He managed to convince Celian and Lix and Constantine that it was best if they left the safe house and returned to Rome. She’d mistake their presence if she did show up, and leaving the Roman colony unprotected for longer than absolutely necessary at a time like this was unthinkable. Celian had brought the journal and gotten him the few days’ reprieve from the confederate colonies that he’d petitioned for, and all he had left to do was see if she would come to him. In only a few hours, his reprieve would expire.

If Eliana didn’t come, he would turn himself in to the Council and let Fate have its way with him. If she didn’t come, nothing mattered anyway. Let them do their worst.

In the meantime, he’d have to find some other way to convince them she was innocent of her father’s treachery. Because he knew she was. He knew it to the marrow of his bones.

He was pondering that, lying on the couch in the dark subterranean living room of the safe house with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling, when he heard a noise.

The sound of knocking, angry and loud.

Two stories above, in the furnished and unused house that hid three levels of secrets below, someone was pounding on the front door.

With his heart in his throat, he leapt to his feet, took the stairs four at a time, and ran, literally flat-out ran to the door. He didn’t even bother looking through the peephole to see who was there—he didn’t need to. Now he smelled her, he felt her, and his blood scorched through his veins like liquid fire.

He threw the door open, and a shock of cold night air, sucked in from outside, hit him in the face.

Then a fist hit him in the face.

“You knew!” Eliana shrieked, loud as a banshee. “You knew and you never told me! How could you not tell me?”

She’d caught him square in the jaw with the punch. It snapped his head around but didn’t budge him, but now she gave him a shove with both hands on his chest that actually set him back on his heels. He stepped back to regain his balance, and she was on him before he could, another fist in his face, wild swinging punches that were all fury and no control, snarling like a lion sprung from a cage.

He spun away and managed to kick the front door shut before she was on him again, pummeling him, cursing him. He thought she might actually cause more damage to herself than to him, so he grabbed both her wrists and pinned them behind her back.

“Settle!” he growled, having to use a surprising amount of his strength to keep her contained as she twisted and fought him. He pulled her up hard against his body and said it again, into her ear. After a second, she did settle, though her breathing remained wild, her heartbeat loud enough for him to hear in the silence of the room. She leaned her head against his shoulder.

“You knew,” she panted, halfway between a whisper and a sob. “You knew all along what he was really like, and I…I…God, I was so blind. I was so stupid!”

He let go of her wrists and crushed her to him. Her body shook against his. “You weren’t stupid. He didn’t let you see. He controlled all of us. There was no way you could have known—”