I snapped awake, curled on the chilly loveseat when the snick of the service door cut through the silence of the little library. I blinked the sleep from my eyes, sitting up so quickly my head spun.

"Hurry and wake up!" Anne was saying, her wide blue eyes panicked. I jumped to my feet, instantly awake.

"Where's Thomas?" I asked, following her as she disappeared back through the service door.

"Dorian and his father were waiting to ambush Andrew, he's trying to head them off," Anne said, lifting her skirts to take the steps two at a time. We raced through the service corridors, flying past maids as we wove through the palace. Eventually, we reached the same narrow hallway Thomas had taken me to before. Anne pushed open the third door and once again I was met with a whiff of Andrew's cologne.

"Where is he?" I asked, prowling around the empty room to search for signs of Andrew.

"They're coming," Anne said, worrying at the embroidery on her skirt again.

She sat on the edge of an armchair while I paced before the dying fire. The sun was sinking in the sky, the chill creeping in from the windows despite the heavy curtains. A maid came to stoke the fire, the sound of the door setting my heart to racing only for it to fall when it wasn't my prince.

I'd nearly calmed my nerves enough to sit with the princess when I heard the voices.

"Oh no," was all Anne said before the door burst open.

I took a step back as Andrew stalked through the door, coming up short as he noticed me. I wanted to throw my arms around him, to tell him what had happened, but his green eyes were haunted and he made no move to approach me.

I didn't have to ask him to know that Dorian had gotten to him first.

"Andrew..." I started, my eyes welling with tears. His chest rose and fell, the look of desperate longing on his face breaking my heart before he turned and took my place, pacing in front of the fire.

"Tell him, Libby," Thomas said urgently, "Tell him about your parents."

"Get the hell out!" Andrew roared, pointing a shaking finger towards the door. Anne gave a little squeak, hopping up to duck under Thomas' arm.

"You need to hear her out," Thomas said, undeterred. Andrew let out a frustrated noise that was more of a growl than a word, advancing menacingly towards his brother. Over Andrew's shoulder, Thomas gave me a pointed look as if to say that this was in my hands now.

When Andrew had slammed the door behind his siblings, the crackling of the fire was deafening as the silence settled over us.

"Andrew..." I began tentatively again, only for him to round on me.

"So was James right last Season when he said you were simply after a wealthy husband? Were all your royal duties too much to pay in exchange for the comfort of being queen?" he demanded. My face crumpled.

"How can you think that?" I demanded, his words ripping my heart into pieces, "I don't want to marry Dorian, they tricked me into-"

"Just like you tricked me? Because I'll admit that I bought the whole act, Libby. You smithing that nail was really the pièce de resistance in your grand effort to convince me that you weren't exactly like the rest of the fluttering ninny debutantes!"

"Why are you so willing to believe them and not me?" I sobbed, the entire room swimming before my face.

"Because you're engaged to Dorian Fletcher mere days after you'd asked me for 'time to think'!" he roared, "Do you have any idea what that feels like?"

"I didn't get engaged! My parents agreed because he bribed them!" I shouted back, my fists clenched at my sides.

"And yet instead of telling me yourself, you let Dorian deliver that blow," Andrew said darkly, "You two are already making a fine pair."

"They locked me in the house!" I screamed, seizing his jacket so he would stop pacing and look at me. His face softened for the briefest of moments, the longing back in his eyes before it was replaced by rage.

"Well isn't that a convenient excuse," he scoffed, cutting me off when I opened my mouth to protest once again, "Ashley was right about you."

The words hit me like a knife to a heart, so hard that I staggered backwards, releasing him.

"What did you just say?" I asked, my voice little more than a whisper.

"I said that Ashley was right about you. She said you were two-faced, that you waltzed about among the other debutantes gloating. I found that incredibly hard to believe, but then again I thought I knew you. This just proves her point."

I reached out and slapped him before I could stop myself, not that I would have even if my brain had been functioning properly. Andrew's head snapped to the side and he kept it there, closing his eyes as if he were composing himself.

"Are you even hearing yourself?" I choked out, "I love you, Andrew! I tried to get to you before they did! I broke through a window and I stole a horse and-"

"She also said that you and Dorian had been up to this for awhile, which I'm starting to believe is true as well," he said flatly, the fire gone from his face as his shutters slammed into place. Desperation flooded my mind. I was losing him because he didn't believe me.

"How can you trust Ashley's lies instead of the truth I'm trying to explain to you?" I asked, shaking so badly I had to grab onto the armchair, "How can you think that I'd ever do something like this willingly?"

"Because people don't get engaged in a day, Libby!" he roared, "I knew there was something amiss about you and Dorian and now you've just gone and proved me right! You're just like the rest of them, a pathetic pretender who was only after a crown!"

I let out a sob as his words sliced through my heart.

"I should never have asked you for time," I said, lowering myself into the chair to bury my face in my hands, "Thomas was right, I am the world's biggest bloody fool."

Andrew said nothing, but I didn't dare look up at him. I couldn't face him looking at me with his eyes so full of the anger and hatred rippling off him in waves. I would never be able to erase that from my mind.

"You can't give up on us because I made one mistake," I managed. Andrew barked a cold laugh.

"You made many, by my count," he said cruelly, "You left me for Dorian, you said yes to Dorian, and you hid it from me so that he could be the one to relish the look on my face when he delivered the news."

"I never said yes!" I screamed through my tears, but his last words had shredded my heart into ribbons. How would I have felt if someone like Ashley had been the one to tell me that she was engaged to Andrew, even if it wasn't true? I'd had enough trouble watching him give the others his first dances, but for him to be knifed in the heart by Dorian, gloating about having wooed me away from him...

"I'm so sorry Andrew," I said, pushing out of the chair to reach for him, but he pulled away from me.

"Sorry for what?" he demanded.

"Sorry that I didn't have the courage to last a few more days for you," I said, hoping that if I spilled my heart he'd change his mind and believe me.

"I don't even know whether to believe a word that comes out of your mouth anymore," he said, studying me before scrubbing his face and resuming his pacing.

"I've never lied to you once. I was a stupid little girl who didn't understand what she was doing when I left," I continued, shadowing his footsteps now as I forced him to hear me out, "Thomas was right when he said there was more going on that I could understand. Dorian and Ashley-"

He whirled on me so quickly that the words stopped in my mouth.

"I always wondered why you hated her so," he said frostily, "Perhaps it was because she was the only one who could see through you?"

"She's the one who's after a crown, Andrew!" I shouted, "And if you can't see that, you're even more stupid than I am!"

"Yes, it seems we're all idiots, aren't we?" he remarked darkly, resuming his pacing. I let out a little growl of frustration.

"What's happened to you? What happened to the Andrew I knew and loved?" I demanded, "How can you throw away everything that was between us by believing Dorian's word over mine?"

"Because he told me why you chose him," Andrew snarled, "He said that you wanted a life of adventure, free from the walls of the palace. Is that not exactly what you've been trying to tell me for some time now? If you two aren't that close, how did he know that?"

"I don't know!" I cried, "And I don't know how to convince you that I'm telling the truth!"

Andrew inhaled shakily, turning away from me to slam a fist against the wall.

"I need to think, Libby," he said through his teeth.

"Then think, but I'm not leaving until-" I started, planting myself firmly in the seat Anne had just vacated, only for the suite door to fly open with a bang.

The queen stood in the doorway, taking in the scene before her with a sweep of her pale blue eyes. Behind her, a pair of footmen hovered, their faces studiously aloof as they took up positions outside the door.

"Your father is requesting you," the queen said flatly to Andrew.

"Tell him I'm busy," he replied frostily. With a sigh, the queen turned her gaze to me.

"Your fiancé is awaiting you downstairs," she said, "It seems your time here at the palace has expired."

Setting my jaw against the swoop of terror in my stomach, I pushed myself out of the chair to face her.

"He is no fiancé of mine," I said defiantly, "And I refuse to leave."

"Your parents are here as well," the queen continued, with a quick glance towards where Andrew was standing immobile by the hearth, "They and Lord Fletcher are terribly embarrassed that you would make such a spectacle of yourself."

"I am not leaving," I said through gritted teeth. I made the mistake of looking over at Andrew, whose face had crumpled as he clutched the mantelpiece.

"I am disinclined to refute your parents' wishes, but if you are ordered to stay I will ask them to leave. Andrew?" the queen said, looking to her son. At her voice, he met her gaze, that same haunted look in his eyes. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked away the seconds as I held my breath.

"You're needed downstairs," he said finally, turning away from me.

"You can't!" I cried, rushing towards him. I managed to seize a handful of his jacket before the queen ordered the footmen in to restrain me.

"Andrew, please! I love you! This isn't my doing!" I pleaded, the tears rushing freely down my face now as the footmen seized my arms. When they dragged me past the queen, it was the first time I'd ever seen something akin to pity in her eyes.

"Are you sure?" she asked Andrew quietly, gesturing for the footmen to pause in the doorway.

"I have nothing left to say to her right now," Andrew said, still refusing to look at me, "She belongs with her parents."

I let out a wail of pure pain before one of the footmen clapped a hand over my mouth, dragging me back to my parents' prison.