When I wasn’t with him, I had plenty of other things to preoccupy me. I had both Adelaide and Tamsin back in my life, and despite their own obligations, we managed to spend time together every day. I loved having all of us together again, though it wasn’t the same as our easier days at Blue Spring. We all felt so much older now.

   Incredibly, Rupert insisted on paying off my contract, no matter how much I tried to tell him I could borrow for it. Only the Thorns and Silas knew. Cornelius had done so many embarrassing things that Rupert wanted his business affairs righted before making what he’d done public. But even if others didn’t know right away, I knew. When Jasper had given me a copy of my fully executed contract, I couldn’t stop staring at it. I was free. I’d made it to Adoria and bought a life for Lonzo and me. His knee was well enough for travel, and I expected him any day, thanks to Grant’s generosity. I’d given Lady Aviel’s earnings to charity.

   My involvement in forming a city watch was kept under wraps too, though I jumped right into its planning with Silas. His experience was reassuring, but I wouldn’t have it for long. He was scheduled to escort Warren and a few other traitors back to Osfrid personally, and I had to accept the daunting reality of soon being completely in charge.

   I think Silas was relieved when Grant moved back to his own place. Grant might have felt like a son, but he was a grating son. Once he was home, I spent so much time at his loft that I might as well have been living there too. The Thorns let me stay at Wisteria Hollow a little longer but could no longer dictate my actions. I was still at the house a lot, and amidst all the other chaos in the world, no one really kept close track of my whereabouts.

   “We shouldn’t be doing this,” I told Grant one morning. It was a luxury to wake up with him instead of scurrying off in the middle of the night.

   He rolled over and wrapped his arms around me. “Sleep in?”

   “No. You know what. You shouldn’t be . . . exerting yourself.” I gently traced the edge of the bandage that still covered his side. “You’re recovering.”

   “Recovering isn’t the same as dead. The doctor says I’m fine, and anyway, you’re a little late in expressing your concern.”

   “I expressed it two days ago.”

   He kissed the side of my neck. “And yet here you are.”

   “I can’t stay. Neither can you. Silas wants to meet with us this morning.” I wriggled away and sat up. Before getting out of bed, I asked hesitantly, “Are you leaving?”

   He put his hands behind his head. “Not today.”

   My question wasn’t about him going to Silas’s. It was part of the same exchange we had every day since he’d become lucid again. Each morning, I’d ask if he was leaving—really leaving. Not today, he would say. And we’d go on with our lives until I had to ask again. We didn’t talk about us or the future. I couldn’t even get him to talk about how he felt about losing the ambassadorial opportunity. When I’d brought it up, he had just shrugged and said, “It’s over. No point getting caught up in it.”

   Today, though, I didn’t go on with my life. I stayed where I was, perched on the side of the bed in a thin chemise, and asked, “Are you happy?”

   The change in our morning dialogue caught him by surprise. “Why would you ask that?”

   “Because I’m tired of asking if you’re leaving every day. I’m tired of being afraid that one day, I’ll come over here, and you’ll be gone.”

   “You think I’d go without telling you?”

   “I don’t know, Grant. I really don’t know much of anything, except that I love you and keep coming back to you each night.”

   He no longer panicked when I told him I loved him, but he always got a quizzical look on his face. “What else do you want?” His question didn’t come across as confrontational or sarcastic. He seemed sincere, like he really wasn’t sure of the answer.

   “I’d like to know what you’re going to do. I’d like to know if you’re going to search for another way to go to the Balanquans. I’d like to know if you’re going to stay . . . with me.”

   He fixed his gaze on the bright window for a long time before finally turning back to me. “I don’t know how to be with you, Mirabel. Here—in bed—that’s never been a problem for us. But I don’t know what to do outside of it. Whenever I’ve had someone or someplace I thought was good and real and lasting, it disintegrated. I don’t want that to happen with you.”

   “And so you’d just rather live day by day, too afraid to go past this? Grant, I don’t really know any more than you do. I mean, look at me. I came in thinking I could sleep with you without liking you.”

   “Turns out you could,” he said, unable to resist himself.

   “No, I always liked you.” I paused. “Most of the time. Look, we’ll probably make some mistakes, but we can figure it out together. If you want to.”

   I sounded very sure of myself, like maybe I actually did know something about relationships. Inside, I was terrified. A perpetual knot of tension in my chest tightened as I waited for his response. What if this was the moment I lost him? Maybe I should have let us go on forever in that undecided state, where we could keep ignoring uncomfortable topics.

   “I want to.” He sat up and reached out to brush hair from my face. His hand trembled. “I can’t leave you, Mirabel.”

   The knot in me eased. I took his hand and brought it to my lips. “Then I can stop asking if you’ll leave?”

   “Yes, but I can’t guarantee you won’t want to throw me out one day.”

   “We’ll be okay. And I can’t really throw you out of your place anyway. I told you, we’ve just got to be in this together. We’ve got to make sure we talk—really talk. Not all snips and banter.”