He walked to the table with a heavy step, coming to stand at Mina’s side. He reached down and wrapped a lock of Mina’s hair around his fingers. Mina sat perfectly still, hardly breathing.
Nicholas dropped the lock of hair and looked her in the eye. “I spoke with Lynet this morning,” he said. “She seemed troubled, disturbed by something. When I asked her if something had happened after I left her with you yesterday, she became quiet, almost fearful. After much questioning, I found out that she met your father.”
Mina felt the blood draining from her face. She thought frantically, but she ended up telling the truth. “I couldn’t prevent it,” she whispered. “I was taking her to her room when he stopped us.”
Nicholas inhaled deeply and then walked back to the fireplace. “I keep trying to forget who you are, who your father is, but I was only fooling myself.”
The resignation in his tone frightened her, her skin prickling with worry. “What do you mean?”
Without looking at her, he said, “We shouldn’t continue to see each other alone anymore. You and your father will continue to live at court, of course, but our interaction will be kept at a minimum.”
Mina stood from the table. “Nicholas, I—” He turned toward her, and she took a faltering step before beginning to sink to the ground. She was fine, of course—shaken, but not unable to walk—but she wanted Nicholas to come to her. He did at once, bounding toward her before she could touch the ground and holding her up in his arms, and Mina remembered how she had wanted to be herself tonight, without any tricks or games. She’d already failed.
“Do you need to sit?”
“No,” Mina said, holding on to his arms to keep herself upright. “No, it’s fine, I just … don’t understand. Have I done something wrong?”
“No, Mina, of course not. It isn’t your fault.” He looked away from her. “But your father—”
“I’m not my father.”
Nicholas still wouldn’t look at her, and the time for timidity had passed, so she put her cold hands in his. “Mina, I can’t…”
“Please. Please just look at me.”
He turned to face her, and she was relieved that he seemed as devastated by this decision as she was. She couldn’t accept that she had come this far only to lose him now. “Nicholas,” she said, “all my childhood, people have hated me because of my father, because of his powers. I can’t stand to think that even you would hate me because of him. Hate me for some other reason, but not that one.”
Nicholas shook his head. “I don’t hate you, Mina, but I—” He stopped, frowning, and for a moment, there was no sound but the crackling of the fire. His eyes hardened, and his hands tightened around hers. “You know about Lynet, don’t you?”
Mina didn’t know how to answer—she didn’t know which answer he wanted to hear—but her hesitation was an answer, and Nicholas let go of her hands and backed away from her. “He promised me he wouldn’t tell anyone, but he told you, didn’t he? Didn’t he?”
“I won’t lie to you,” Mina said. The sweetness was gone from her voice, and she no longer pretended to be faint. The time for lying was over. She had to shift her footing, as though balancing on a very high wall that had suddenly started to crumble. If she was careful, she might still not fall. “Yes, I know. I know and I’ve never once told anyone. I would never tell anyone, least of all Lynet.”
He turned away from her, toward the fire—toward Emilia. She knew she would lose him if he kept looking at the queen instead of her. “Nicholas, listen to me,” she said to his retreating back. “I wasn’t lying when I said I was lonely here. My father is not a good man. He cares little for me, and I’ve always known it. In the years I’ve been at court, you’ve shown me nothing but kindness, especially when I needed it most. Is it so hard to believe that I would feel some … affection toward you? That I would want to be near you whenever I could? I’m no pawn in my father’s games. I … I wanted you for myself, not for his sake. Please—” She stopped, nearly breathless. She had never known that honesty could be so exhausting.
But Nicholas wasn’t moved by her confession. He kept his back to her, shaking his head slowly. “I almost asked you to marry me tonight,” he said in a low voice.
She grabbed the back of her chair for balance, but now she actually needed it. “What did you say?”
“That was why I invited you here. I was planning to ask you to marry me.”
Mina took a steady breath. “And do you still want to ask me?”
Nicholas shook his dark head. “I’m not sure. Sometimes I don’t think I should remarry at all.”
Mina’s fingers curled around the back of the chair, her nails scratching tiny marks in the wood. She had taken off every piece of armor she had, stripped away every lie and pretense, and she was still going to lose him because of her father. She had tried being the sad, lonely girl who needed rescue, and she had tried being herself, as much as she dared. What else could she do to make him want her? What else did she have to offer him?
She heard her father’s voice in her mind, a quiet reassurance: He can’t content himself with a memory forever. Soon he’ll want solid flesh, and that is something you have that the old queen no longer does.
He was still facing the portrait, his beloved dead queen whom he could only love from afar. Mina let go of the chair and went to him. Even if she offended him now, at least he would refuse her on her own merit rather than her father’s. She pressed herself against his back, draping her arms around his shoulders, and he let out a small, surprised gasp. “Nicholas,” she murmured, “I don’t want to lose you.”
He disentangled himself from her arms and turned to her. As long as he stopped looking at that portrait, Mina thought she might still have a chance.
“Do I look like my father?” she said, turning her face toward the light.
He managed a single breathless laugh. “Certainly not.”
“Then what do you see when you look at me?”
He swallowed. “Mina—”
“Do you find me beautiful?”
He started to turn away again, so Mina took his hand and brought it to rest against her cheek. “In the throne room that day, you touched my face, like this. I think you wanted to kiss me. Nothing has changed between us now.”
After loving a ghost for so long, he seemed to marvel at the feel of her skin under his hand. He was warmer than Felix—softer, too, and she wondered if his touch could transform her from glass to flesh.
“We’ve both been lonely, haven’t we?” Mina said, and she wasn’t sure if she was still playing a part or if she was speaking truthfully now.
He was playing with her hair, letting the strands fall between his fingers. “Yes, at times,” he said so quietly Mina could barely hear him. “I didn’t think I would marry again, but…”