41. Back again
S elene wakes to the scent of roses.
Soft morning light filters through gauzy curtains, casting golden patterns over the quilted coverlet. A breeze drifts in through the open window, carrying the sound of birdsong and the rustling of new leaves. Spring.
Her fingers twitch against the sheets. Something warm and heavy shifts at her side, a familiar weight pressing against her ribs. She turns her head and finds Mistress Stripe curled in a perfect circle, her grey-striped fur rising and falling with each slow breath.
Roselune Abbey.
She’s made it back.
The realisation tightens around her chest. Her old bedroom, her old bed, her old life.
She sits up too fast, the world spinning as her pulse quickens.
She presses a hand to her chest, half-expecting to feel the sting of poison still lingering in her veins, but there is nothing.
No pain. No sign of death. Just the scent of rosewood polish, the distant chime of the hall clock, the soft, steady purring of her cat.
The door creaks open.
Selene turns sharply, praying it’s not her mother, but it’s only Cassie.
The maid stops short, nearly spilling the tray in her hands. “Oh! You’re awake.”
Selene stares. Cassie looks exactly as she remembers her—round-cheeked, freckled, her honey-brown curls pinned back beneath a lace cap.
A lifetime ago, she had been the one to wake Selene every morning, the one to help lace her gowns, the one to whisper gossip in her ear. But that was before. Before—
Her vision blurs.
“Cassie,” she breathes.
She leaps out of bed, nearly knocking the tray aside as she throws her arms around her old maid. Cassie makes a startled sound, but she doesn’t pull away. She’s not Dorian, but for now, Selene just needs to hold someone, anyone. She needs to know she’s here.
“Are you all right, my lady?” Cassie asks, pulling back slightly to study her face.
Selene inhales sharply, blinking away the dampness in her eyes. She has so many questions, but only one rises to the surface first. “What day is it?”
Cassie gives her an odd look. “Oh, it’s only the day of your engagement announcement, of course! The Duke will be arriving soon.”
Selene sways. She grips the bedpost, steadying herself, forcing her breath to slow .
The day of her engagement. Again.
They’ve only come back five months.
She exhales, pressing her fingers against her lips. It’s fine. It has to be fine. Dorian will be here soon. And this time, she will not lose him. This time, they know who their target is. The evidence is somewhere in this very house. It’s why they keep coming back to this day. She’s sure of it.
“Help me dress,” she demands.
Cassie looks taken aback. Selene is not one for readying early, even on special days. “Don’t you want your breakfast?”
Selene isn’t sure she could manage a mouthful. Dorian, Dorian, I have to see Dorian.
He’ll be waking up in Ebonrose. He’s probably woken up already, knowing him.
It’s hours away, but he’ll set off as soon as possible.
He’ll be coming for her. She’ll find him, and then they’ll find evidence of her mother’s betrayal, and go to the King, and all will be well. She’ll be back home by this evening.
“I’ll eat later,” Selene insists. “Please, Cassie.”
Cassie doesn’t argue. She goes to Selene’s armoire and selects the cream and lavender gown with roses—the same one Selene has worn twice before on this day, and probably in all the other timelines, too.
But not again. She wants Dorian to know, the second that he sees her, that she remembers, that she followed him through.
“Not that one,” she says.
Cassie frowns. “You love this one.”
“I do,” she says. “But not today.”
She crosses the room and selects another—green silk, embroidered with purple flowers. They aren’t irises, but they’ll do.
“This one,” she says.
If Cassie is surprised that Selene is picking such a gown—it’s a dainty thing with no nod towards the Duke’s family—she says nothing. She helps Selene into it without comment.
Selene allows Cassie to weave her hair through with pins, leaving most of it down.
She looks like a meadow, sweet and girlish.
The Duke would hate it. It gives her pride to know how much, even if she hates the fact that the Duke is alive again, and she’s under the same roof as her mother—her mother who has no idea that Selene knows what she’s planning to do.
A mother who will face execution when Selene reveals it to King Alden .
And Selene will. To safeguard her future—Dorian’s future—she will have to.
Finally, Selene is dressed. She knows Dorian is unlikely to have made it here already, but she can’t stand waiting. She forces herself to eat a few bites of breakfast, and then she is out.
The corridors suffocate her. The air is thick with the scent of incense and the polished wood of the estate.
Servants bow as she passes, but she barely sees them.
She is only focused on the front doors, on the moment she will walk through them and step into the morning air, towards the path where Dorian will arrive.
The morning greets her with a cool breeze, the scent of damp earth and roses. She strides across the stone steps, down into the courtyard where guests will be gathering for festivities later on. The thought makes her ill.
The path to the gardens is one she knows well, one she has walked a thousand times before, but today, it feels different.
The air is charged, as though the world itself is waiting for something.
Perhaps it is only her own anticipation pressing against her ribs, making her breath come shallow and fast.
She reaches the edge of the garden, where the hedges arch into a passageway lined with blooms. Here, she pauses, pressing a hand against her middle. The nausea is sharp, but she forces it down.
Dorian will come. He must come. She just has to wait for him a little longer.
She takes another step, then another, her gaze sweeping the distant road beyond the garden walls. But there is no sign of him yet. Only the quiet hum of the morning, the distant calls of birds, the rustling of leaves in the breeze.
A sound behind her.
She turns sharply, heart lurching—but it is not Dorian. Merely another guest, admiring the blooms.
She reminds herself that it’s still early, that even if he was up at the crack of dawn, the chances of him being here already are slim.
She tries to calculate how long it took him last time, although she isn’t sure he came from Ebonrose in that timeline—he may have already been in the capital, waiting at his townhouse .
She lingers by the hedges for a moment longer, then begins to pace. First along the flower-lined path, then back again, her steps quickening each time she turns. The gardens are quiet still, untouched by the stir of guests, but it brings her no peace. Her hands curl and uncurl at her sides.
What if he’s gone to the front of the house? He might not even know she’s here. She should have sent a note. Or waited by the gate. Or—gods, anything other than this aimless walking, this waiting that feels like drowning.
She moves through the garden paths, turning down another avenue of roses, then across the stone terrace, half-expecting to catch a glimpse of him through the trees, down the drive, beyond the gates.
Nothing.
Another glance toward the road.
And there—just there, where the garden gives way to open land and gravel path—movement. A figure. Her breath catches.
Not a servant. Not a guest.
Her vision narrows to him alone, to the familiar set of his shoulders, the way his hair catches the light, the outline of his face that she has traced a thousand times with fingers and kisses.
He’s here, her heart sings. He’s here, he’s here.
She starts to run. She’s breathing too fast to even call out his name.
It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t need her words, not now.
In a few seconds, she’ll be in his arms. It feels like it has been weeks or months or years since she’s seen him, not hours.
But it’s coming to an end, now. All will be right in the world again.
And then he turns.
The smile he gives her is warm, composed—but not relieved. Not desperate. He does not rush to her, does not reach for her.
It is wrong. All wrong.
Selene slows to a stop.
She waits for him to move to her, for his eyes to light up, for recognition to spark. Perhaps he’s not wearing his glasses properly or the sun is in his eyes or —
“Dorian—” she breathes, stepping closer, searching his face for something, anything.
“Ah, Lady Selene,” he says, his voice pleasant, distant. “How nice to see you.”
She stops dead. The world tilts. No. No, this can’t be happening. He died where he was supposed to. He crossed over with her—
“You… you don’t remember me.”
Dorian’s brow furrows slightly. “What are you talking about, my lady? Of course I remember you. We were at school together for years—”
Selene shakes her head, her breath coming faster, harder. “That’s not what I mean! We—you and I—”
She can’t finish. The words splinter in her throat.
His expression is open, confused—but there is no flicker of recognition. No secret smile, no quiet understanding. The weight of five months, of everything they have been through, of everything they were supposed to change—it is gone. Wiped from him like dust brushed from a page.
She stares at him, her pulse roaring in her ears, as the truth sinks its claws into her chest.
He doesn’t know her.
Not as he should.
Not as he promised he would.
Selene had known there were risks. She had known that time was cruel and unpredictable. But she had not thought—she had not considered—
“Lady Selene?” Dorian’s voice is gentle, questioning.
The way he says her name is as cold and heavy as metal. It has never sounded like that to her before, because when she met Dorian in the gardens all those months ago, he already knew her. He already loved her.
This Dorian didn’t.
Her knees buckle.