“So you rape,” she said. “You are a rapist. You believe you have the right to take anything and anyone you want. To force your will on them. To make them do your bidding. To deny them their own free will.”

He smiled. The light from the fireplace glittered in his eyes. “You protest too much, my dear,” he told her. “This doesn’t have to be an unpleasant encounter. I believe you will enjoy this far more if you simply let yourself go.”

She tilted her head as she studied him. “You know, I think you’re right. Come take me if you can.”

“You are a true delight.” He laughed. “And, oh yes, I can.”

When he walked toward her, she strode forward to meet him.

* * *

Morgan was glad to leave another frustrating day behind as he climbed over the rooftops to Sidonie’s room. That afternoon he had finished going through the last of the texts. There hadn’t been anything useful to use in summoning Azrael, and he continued to fail to create a summoning spell himself.

He had tried various tricks, but nothing worked. He couldn’t even successfully create a general summoning spell for any god. The geas had clamped down, disrupting his thought patterns and hampering his Power.

Despite their best-laid plans, he might have to go to Earth after all to search for a spell. Isabeau could have something useful in her personal collection, but she had never allowed him to see her books on magic, and she’d expressly forbidden him from accessing the library. Maybe when Robin returned, he could sneak in to look at the titles to see if she might have something they could use.

Sliding down the iron pipe attached to the inn’s gutter, Morgan leaped over the balcony railing. The rising moon was only half-full, but the pale square of the note pinned to the balcony table was immediately apparent. He didn’t have to glance inside to know the room was empty. He could sense it from where he stood.

Striding over to the table, he snatched up the note.

Go back. I can’t see you tonight.

Wrongness curled around him like the smoke from a burning building.

Sidonie didn’t write that Isabeau had asked for her hour of music late in the day. She didn’t ask him to wait for her. Instead, she told him to leave. Why hadn’t she asked him to wait?

The balcony doors were closed and locked. Looking in the room, he saw the sheets had been stripped from the bed, and a cleaning bucket sat on the floor by the door.

She had washed the room clean of his scent. She hadn’t asked for him to wait, because she wasn’t expecting to come back.

Placing the flat of his hand against the balcony door, he tilted his head as if to listen to whatever may have happened inside that would have made her leave.

It wasn’t something Morgan had done. He would swear to it. If he had done something, Sidonie would think through the issue, then talk to him about it, carefully hitting all the important points. Besides, when he had left her early that morning, she had been sleepy, relaxed, and affectionate.

No, something had happened during the day, yet she’d had enough freedom to clean the room and leave the note. She’d felt secure enough to write the note, and confident enough that he would find it, but she still hadn’t offered any explanation. Why?

Because she didn’t want him to know what she was going to do.

His hand tightened to a fist as he pressed it against the door.

She didn’t want him to know, because what she was doing was dangerous. She would have told him virtually anything else. She would have told him if it was something they could do together.

She would have told him if it was something Morgan could have fixed, but there were two things constraining him—the geas and his dwindling supply of hunter’s spray.

And anything related to those two constraints led back to the castle.

He didn’t have to waste time tracking her. He didn’t know why, but he knew where she’d gone.

If he followed her, he would be using the last of his hunter’s spray to avoid detection. She could have warned him to go home for that reason alone. But as he glanced back into the room, at how carefully she had left everything, the sense of wrongness washed over him again, and he knew that wasn’t true. Again, it was something she could have told him.

And going back to his cottage wasn’t an option, not even if he lost the last of his freedom that night.

Digging into his supply bag for the spray, he used the rest of the bottle to douse himself thoroughly, then he slipped his lump of beeswax into his pocket. Afterward, he threw the bag high onto the roof, settled his sword scabbard between his shoulders, cast a cloaking spell, and climbed down to the street.

Setting off for the castle at a sprint, he thought through possibilities.

Where would she be? Not the servants’ quarters. If Isabeau had simply ordered her to return to the castle, Sidonie would have told him that too.

He would start with the music hall and work his way through the castle from there.

Layering a spell of aversion over the cloaking, he slipped like a shadow past the guard at the gate and through the castle halls. A feeling of urgency drove him forward. Even though he had brought the beeswax, he didn’t use it.

Instead, he listened keenly to everything around him. The snatches of conversation he caught from courtiers as they passed by seemed untroubled. Warrick and Johan lingered near the great hall, flirting with two of the court ladies. Their demeanor was relaxed as well. Whatever had compelled Sidonie to act the way she had, it was a private matter.

As he drew near the double doors of the music hall, he heard a loud thump from inside the room. Springing at the door, he found it locked. A quick spell unlocked it. As he slipped inside, he saw Valentin backhand Sidonie.

She reeled from the blow, but instead of crumpling, she used the momentum of the movement to spin around, jump, and land a flying kick to his jaw. It was a spectacular move, full of elegance and speed.

Valentin’s head snapped back, and he staggered.

Breathing hard, she hesitated.

It was a rookie mistake, that hesitation. Morgan would have drilled that out of anyone on his training field. As Valentin recovered, he grabbed Sidonie by the throat.

Baring his teeth, he snarled, “It would have gone so much better for you if you had just submitted.”

By then, Morgan had already begun his lunge across the room. His focus narrowed down to one thing—the hand Valentin had around Sidonie’s pale throat.

He was fast, so much faster than either Valentin or Sidonie, yet he was still too far away when he saw her reach into her sleeve and draw out a knife.