Page 109 of To Dance with Death

She had done the impossible. And worse, she’d owned his heart from their very first meeting.

But it wasn’t their first meeting, was it?

He sits next to the single flame floating in the air, contained within a sphere of glass, and cracks open the codex once more. It had taken him time and dedication to read this far, considering he had no choice but to start from the very beginning.

It was a shock indeed to find out who her father was. He had learned that the very first night.

And had been stewing on it ever since.

With each page, each chapter, her story made shreds of his soul.

Her stepmother’s murder.

How she fled across the sea with nothing and no one to protect her.

How she found her way to that theater.

Anton was hooked on it—hooked onher.Every spare moment, he returned to her codex, brushing past the guilt at invading her life this way. Her worst experiences, her innermost thoughts, were laid bare before him, raw and unfiltered. He’d never let her read his; he would be far too ashamed. But Vasalie—

She had nothing to be ashamed of.

Even if he had acted otherwise two days ago. Right before he found her sneaking about in Moranya’s Citadel, he’d been in a petty rage. He’d just read the way his brother approached her on that stage. Illian led her into his court, wrapped her up the way a spider strings silk around its prey, and Anton—

He’d been furious. Both at Illian for daring to exist in her presence, and at her for not telling him how deeply she was involved with him. Never mind that she was desperate. Never mind that Anton didn’t have the right to judge her choices, that she had a right to chase a position that she had earned.

Though perhaps what made him the angriest was that he didn’t have a right to be angry at all.

But he felt drawn to her in a way that scared the daylights out of him. Those feelings only grew as he shoved them away. And then…thenshe had confessed her love, Fates-damnit, and it nearly brought him to his knees.

But how could he trust her after what she withheld?

So yes, he had all but declined her proposal—because he needed the truth. Needed to know just how far her relationship with Illian had progressed. He had to know what happened, and what led to all…this.

So the moment they returned from Ansa, he had snatched her codex. Read until he almost couldn’t stomach it, especially when his brother nearly took her to his bed.

Instead he threw her in prison.

Anton summoned Illian faster than he could blink, then interrogated him within an inch of his afterlife. He’d almost cast himinto the Sands when he didn’t get answers, then thought better ofit.

There was no logical reason for Illian to withhold the truth about Vasalie, about what he had done and why, even under interrogation. Even when threatened with the Sands.

Something wasn’t right. So Anton came back to the only place he might find answers once more.

What he found was like a punch to the gut.

He had met her before. Vasalie.

There, inked on finite pages, was his first encounter with her. And then the next.

Now he flips the codex open to where he had last left off. The scene she had interrupted before he put her back to bed.

There are perhaps a few hundred pages left, but his determination is boundless. Especially now that he knows something is very, very wrong. Chunks of his memories are missing. The entire Gathering was different, for Fates’ sake, from the very beginning, and he feels the truth of it—the truth of her story—the way he might feel the temperature drop of an oncoming storm, the certainty that it would bring the rain.

He feels it down to the marrow.

A million thoughts and questions clog his head. How has it come to this? What has spoiled his mind? But one thing is for certain.

He will damned well uncoverwhy.