The fire of the oil lamp was all but gone. It was the third to diminish all night. Shadows danced against the walls. Despite the warm tone of light, I felt cold.

I shed a tear and closed my eyes to stave off the rest. Edmond was the opposite, he looked...satisfied.

"He lied to her," he muttered from the large chair, eyes fixed on the table. When he picked his head up, a ghost of a smile faded from his calm expression. "He told her that he'd been with a nurse. But he told me he hadn't been with anyone but her. Ever."

Perhaps it was pride that he felt at Raphael's honor, but fury burned in me instead.

"So, he wasted seven years of his life, fighting for a woman who eventually got him killed?" I asked.

Edmond sat back, surprised.

"And he told her that," I explained with feigned composure, "he betrayed his pact, and made her believe he was moving on because he tried to allow her the same. Again and again, he tried to escape her and she wouldn't allow it."

Each utterance had Edmond's gaze drifting. Once it settled on the floor, it was all I could do not to fling something at the wall.

"She let him go, too. She tried to—"

"By drawing him a picture of my daughter and masquerading her as a boy—"

"She did it to keep him alive!" Edmond gazed at me, awed. "I hated her. Until the very moment I realized you had these letters, the ones he'd sent, I'd hated her. Even upon discovering she'd poisoned herself, I'd hated her. But now...." He shook his head, tearful. "Now, I'm happy to have the second side of the correspondences."

On the table, his set of letters still rested beside mine. We'd taken turns; I read for Bella and he for Raphael. And that had made it harder. Edmond sat proud now, while I felt only shame.

Arabella had hated herself in the end, but she had been right. Raphael was handsome. And with the favor of a king, land, and money, he could have done well enough for himself.

All he needed to do was forget Arabella.

But he hadn't and it had dragged him down. So why was it that Edmond could find peace in these letters, while they left me wrecked?

"I'm sure you wonder how I know Cinderella was yours." Edmond waited for me to focus on him before boasting, "She told him. Within days of him returning, she came to see him in town. And that's why he came to find me."

My eyes settled on the mahogany.

"He told me right away, he recognized her illness before she'd confessed it to him. And he sought me out because their child would no doubt end up orphaned now that they were a couple once more."

I sat back, hands gripping the chair. "Are you saying that she gave that to him?"

My fury was met with surprise. "He said he did not care. I genuinely believe he did not. There were new treatments he wished to find for her. But if you're asking if he was intimate with her despite the illness, then yes. He was."

I stood, shoving my chair back as I turned to face the rising sun beyond the window.

Even that was unforgivable.

"She was horrid."

No counter argument came. When Edmond finally spoke, his concern lay elsewhere. "But all that Cinderella has witnessed would be difficult for any child. I...I think you should consider having her looked at."

Hands behind my back, I watched the sun begin its laborious effort to pull itself above the tree line.

"There's nothing wrong with her," I affirmed.

He took his time to answer, indicating that we were not in agreement.

"I believe she's created some delusions to keep herself safe, but this is unhealthy. No one can live like this unless they become more grounded. The only ones who get to create their own reality are the rulers."

Worry drove me to chew my bottom lip. I did not want to argue nor carry on in a manner unfit. Not after what my sister'd done to Raphael, his brother.

"Are you leaving?" I asked. Shyness and hesitation no longer came to me.

Finally, Edmond confessed, "Yes."

I closed my eyes and let out a deep breath.

"And will you return?"

His silence was my only answer.

"Then what was all this?"

Wood scraped against wood as the chair moved back and Edmond got to his feet, leaving me crushed.

"Had you stayed for me at all?" I barely recognized my own voice.

And I barely recognized his. "The arrogance. Where do you get off with such arrogance?" he demanded.

Truly, as the matriarch, I should have reminded him of his station but that would only push him further away. He was not Raphael. He wouldn't give seven years of his life to war and chaos only to come home and allow a woman to kill him figuratively in lovemaking then literally in a careless plan he saved her life from.

I wanted that.

It was wrong to demand it. All the more horrid of me to expect it but why couldn't I have that?

Edmond's voice came to me strangled. "You say speak freely. Is that truly something I can do?"

It wasn't. Even now, I wanted him to shut up.

But how could I explain the myriad of emotions in me if I wasn't brave enough to hear of his own?

"I do not love you," Edmond said.

The rising sun no longer held my gaze, so I turned to face him. I wanted this to sting as much as possible.

"I'd thought perhaps I had. But upon reading these, I now know that I do not. No. I would fight no war, kill others and draw blood for you. No. I would not promise myself to you knowing you were married. And no, absolutely no, I would not forgive you telling me I had a son when there wasn't one. And bedding you while you were ill, that would certainly, beyond the shadow of a doubt, not enter into my mind."

His body shook once he'd finished.

He calmed somewhat and said, "Nor would I expect all that from you."

It took some time for our eyes to meet.

"Nor should you expect that from me. Because you would not do the same. Nor should you."

His words held a challenge, one that I could not pick up.

"Even if we'd never been intimate, I would not stay. I will not die in a country that took my only kin. I want to find a place of my own. I am not worthless. I'm a human being and I deserve to be treated as such. Not to live out my dying days licking the boots of others." He hove a sigh and continued, saying, "I stayed to find out what had happened to him. And then I stayed to enjoy your company and perhaps help you. But now, now I must leave. Because when it becomes known that the man of the house is missing—dead, and his servant has taken his wife as a lover, the truth no longer matters. Only those key components will factor in. You, a mother of three may find only a shunning. I will have a noose."

My body lost all fight, but he wasn't finished.

"And if you loved me, wouldn't you have told me to leave on your own?"

I bit back a cry because he was right. We both knew it. This was a dangerous game for many reasons. He'd been right. More than right.

In the end, I might be spared but not he.

"But you didn't. You tell me to risk it. And that I can't ignore."

He bowed then marched to the door. The slam left the house buzzing. It broke me, much like I were standing in the path of that wood flying shut.

I told myself not to, but I watched him stomp from the house and into his little hut.

Everything in me wanted to see if he were all right. Emotionally, even I was still torn in two. Raphael had given everything. Deep down, I was certain that even when he knew he was dying, he did not care because it was for the woman he loved.

What a fool.

Love was a selfish thing. So how could he be so unselfish? And Arabella, that witch, she'd turned herself inside out after he was gone. She hung on until she could hang on no more. But the way she died, and the damage she left behind, she didn't care one bit. I told myself that her silence during Raphael's time away was her trying to set him free. Maybe she'd been resigned to live her life in a loveless marriage, raising a child who wasn't hers. Someone, no doubt the prince, sent Edmond a letter begging for help, Edmond brought it to Arabella who panicked and wrote to Raphael. And not just panicked, she went mad. Crazed enough to draw a picture of a fictious child, incentivizing the man she loved to fight harder.

What was she supposed to do in that situation?

And yet, I still hated them.

I hated them both for doing something of which I was incapable.

No. I was capable of letting Edmond go. These few months filled a void inside me that had slowly swallowed my soul for the last seventeen years. I wanted more. But there was no more. There simply was none. Not with Gareth's death hanging over us. And even if he were alive, there was none.

There was only reality, and love was a blasted lie.

Fools like Arabella and even Raphael had found love. And they'd found fate. Thoughts of the exaltation of seeing him again after seven years made me jealous. For one month she ran off with him. She could have left then, gone to his land in secret, hid away there until they both died in each other's arms. But she hadn't...she'd come back for Cinderella and they both paid the price for it.

This child; she was cursed. She'd already cost too many people their lives. And when I looked away from Edmond's hut, finally, I decided one thing—I would fix her.