45. A Spy, a Lord and a Lady
I t is just as well that Selene has Soren to help her, because the next few days afford her not a scrap of free time to find anything for herself. She is paraded around from event to event, barely given a moment to catch her breath before she is ushered into the next obligation.
Mornings begin with fittings. Lace and silk, pearls and gemstones, hands tugging at her waist, lifting her arms, tilting her chin.
She is measured and draped in layer after layer of finery while seamstresses murmur about adjustments, about embroidery and embellishments, as if she is some prized doll to be adorned rather than a woman about to be wed.
Then there are the shopping trips—fabric for the trousseau, jewellery to match the wedding gown, slippers delicate as spun sugar, perfumes and powders, trinkets for the guests.
Her mother hovers beside her, fingers light on Selene’s wrist, as if afraid she might bolt at any moment.
The woman’s grip is gentle but unyielding, a leash of silk that binds tighter than iron.
Afternoons are for lessons—how to move with grace beneath the weight of her gown, how to smile just so, how to dance with Eirik without faltering. As if she is not already well-versed in the language of courtly performance, as if she has not been born into it.
Evenings are worse. Banquets, soirées, long hours spent standing beside Eirik, hand in hand, smiling at lords and ladies who whisper behind their fans.
She lies through her teeth, offers soft words about her excitement for the match, endures the endless well-wishes and the lingering gazes of those waiting to see some spark of romance between them.
Eirik plays his part well, but there is nothing in his touch, nothing in his gaze beyond polite duty.
Selene has thought herself good at deception, but her mother’s eyes never leave her for long.
The slightest falter, the barest flicker of reluctance, and there is a tightening at the corners of Lady Duskbriar’s mouth, a warning in the way she takes Selene’s hand and squeezes, as if to say, Don’t you dare ruin this.
Of course her mother is excited for the match. A part of Selene wonders why she didn’t suggest it in the first place, but then she thinks about the girl her mother thought she was—simple and foolish, unbefitting for the bride of a king. It probably never crossed her mind.
She wonders what her mother is thinking now, and then decides she doesn’t care. Her mother’s thoughts cannot touch her.
Each morning, Selene wakes with the hope that Dorian will remember. Soren is following Lady Duskbriar when he can, or investigating her rooms. He hasn’t found anything yet. He leaves Selene notes under butter dishes or folded between the pages of a book by her bedside.
Nothing yet. Will keep looking.
Have tried her study. Still nothing.
Dorian is still not back with us.
By the fourth evening, Selene feels hollow, like a ghost drifting through the halls of her own life. She has lost all hope now, and she has to pretend to be a blushing bride.
Dorian is not coming back to her.
He is gone.
If Soren finds nothing on her mother, she will marry Eirik. She will be his wife. She will move to Ashvold, and she will kill him.
Her thoughts are like pincers. Revenge, or the hope for it, is the only thing that keeps her moving, although a part of her feels almost resigned to her fate. It will not be so bad, living in Ashvold, ruling as Queen.
There is nothing left for her in Haverland. She spends her days surrounded by people, but she has never felt more alone. Selene craves the silence, but she’s also terrified of it. Her thoughts multiply in the darkness.
At night, her mother lingers outside her chamber, a shadow at the door, fussing over small things, making excuses to stay.
Selene wants to tell her that she is not going to vanish, but that she wishes she would.
Finally, one evening, she’s afforded a narrow scrap of time to herself whilst her mother has business elsewhere. She makes an excuse to her remaining entourage that she has business with one of the many wedding vendors, and takes Cassie with her in the carriage.
But she doesn’t head into town. She goes to Dorian’s townhouse instead, where she knows Soren is staying. She leaves Cassie in the carriage, sworn to silence.
She heads up to the door and rings the bell. A minute goes by before it is answered.
Only it isn’t Soren who answers.
It’s Dorian.
Selene takes a step back, almost slipping off the back step. Dorian’s hand reaches out to steady her, stopping her fall.
It’s such a Dorian thing to do.
But he’d do it for anyone.
There is no recognition in his eyes. None .
“I didn’t think… I’m looking for Soren,” she tells him.
“I supposed as much,” Dorian says. “Please. Come in. He won’t be long.”
It would be a scandal indeed if she were caught in another man’s house alone, and so soon before her wedding.
She imagines King Eirik wouldn’t care much—he wants this alliance, and a minor scandal won’t deter him, especially as Ashvold doesn’t much care about that sort of thing.
She’s learned a lot about the country since Soren told her about it.
She can see why her mother wants this invasion.
But her mother hasn’t spent any time in Thornmere. She doesn’t think about the people whose lives will be lost if Eirik has his way. Selene won’t let that happen. She can’t.
She steps into Dorian’s townhouse. It reminds her a lot of Ebonrose in its decor—several seasons out of date, most of the rooms shut up.
It’s the nearest she’ll ever have to coming home.
“Are you all right?” Dorian says. “You look—”
“I’m fine,” she says. She isn’t, but she can hardly explain that to him. “Perhaps I could have some tea, whilst I wait?”
“Of course.”
He ushers her into the parlour and steps away to ready the tea. Selene hovers in the room. It smells of dust, but also him. That bookish, papery smell. A little of ink.
She wants to inhale it. She wants to inhale him.
Her hands explore the items in the room whilst she waits for the tea.
There’s dozens of books, an antique drinks cabinet shaped like a globe, horse figurines, paintings of animals and a portrait of Dorian’s father.
She stares at Lord Gideon for a long while, wondering if some version of Dorian is with him in the next life, if memories have souls and what it means if they do not.
Dorian deserves rest, he deserves peace. But she also hates the idea that all his struggles were for naught.
Goddess, she wonders to herself, what was the point of it all?
But perhaps there is no point, no fate, no rest eternal—perhaps there is only this world, and what they try to do in it .
And she will try. For Dorian, for Thornmere, she will try to fix everything. No matter the cost.
Dorian returns with the tea. He’s included dishes of lemon, bowls of sugar and honey.
“I wasn’t sure how you took it,” Dorian explains.
Selene helps herself to a cup. Never once has she ever had to tell Dorian her preference. He has always known, from the first day until his last.
Selene makes up his cup for him, too. No sugar, no sweetener. She passes it over.
“Thank you,” he says, seeming surprised that she knew.
She cannot meet his gaze. She half wishes he would leave. It would be impolite, of course, but it would be better than… this.
She stares around the room. “This is a nice place.”
“You’ve never been?”
She shakes her head. Silence falls again. They both sip their tea.
“Soren tells me…” Dorian begins. “He tells me that… you and I were very close in our past life.”
Selene nods, although close seems like such a thin, narrow word to describe it. You gave my soul breath, would be better. You brought me back to life and made me something different, the version of myself I was always meant to be.
“I’m…” He pushes his glasses up his nose. “I’m so very terribly sorry I don’t remember that.”
“It isn’t your fault.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t, but I’m very sorry about it all the same.”
He is so him and so not him, all at the same time.
All Dorian’s face, Dorian’s expressions, Dorian’s manners and politeness and kindness, but not all of his soul.
Not the soul she loved, peppered with her own.
She barely knew Dorian before she married him and yet she’s never known him to look at her with anything other than love.
His eyes are not empty—they are just as warm as she remembers them—but they lack the colours they used to hold.
She hadn’t realised before how much she loved his scars, how much of what she loved had been created by pain.
I should not want to see those eyes, she reminded herself. She should be happy for the absence of pain in them. Happy he’s free.
But she can’t be. She doubts she’ll ever be happy again.
“Perhaps,” Dorian continues, “when this is over, you and I could… get to know one another again.”
Selene closes her eyes, keeping back the tears. Gods, Dorian, how did you manage it? How had he coped with looking at her and knowing everything they were to each had just vanished? And he’d done it for months, bore it all so silently, so well…
It hardly matters what happens next. It will never be the same. They’ve lost so much. He isn’t the Dorian who had fallen in love with her.
“Did Soren tell you that it used to be the other way around?” she tells him. “That you were the one who remembered, and I was the one who forgot?”
“He… he might have, yes.”
“So I suppose this is only fair.”
“Nothing about this situation is fair, Selene.”
Selene. It’s her name, coming from him, but it still feels wrong, too stiff, too formal.
At least there’s no “Lady”.
Could she do it again? Could she try to love this version of Dorian? He had, for her. He had endured months of her not knowing. Years of it.
The old Dorian would want her to try.
But he was gone.
“Did Soren tell you what we were planning?” she asks him.
“Yes,” he admits.
“Then you know, unless we find evidence proving a plot between Eirik and my mother, I will be going to Ashvold.”
“And killing your husband.”
Selene freezes. “He isn’t my husband.” You are. You were. You are, you were, you are—
“He will be.”
“No,” she says clearly. “He won’t. Not in the ways that matter. ”
I will have married three men in my lifetime, she thinks. But only one will ever be my husband.
She supposes it’s actually four. She was married to Reginald Fairmont in one past timeline too, but she doesn’t remember that.
It doesn’t count unless she remembers.
Dorian drops his gaze, as if he can sense the intensity of her thoughts. Her Dorian would have blushed to hear them, to hear her call him husband.
“Are you sure you can do it?” he asks.
“Commit murder? I think so.” A year ago, she would have thought herself incapable of it, but that was before she’d been in love. Before she knew what it was like to watch someone die. It fractured something inside her.
She has been the best version of herself. It is time to be her worst.
Dorian turns away from her.
“If you think I can’t pull this off—”
“I don’t doubt that you’re capable of far more than people have ever given you credit for.”
Selene inhales sharply. He shouldn’t know that about her. But even as a child, Dorian clearly saw her better than so many others.
“I’m sorry,” Dorian adds, “did that offend you—”
“No,” she hurries. “No, not that.”
“Then—”
“Please,” she begs him, “Just… just stop. Stop being so… so nice. ”
“I’m not sure I can.”
Selene swallows her tears. She needs something to distract her. “I’m sorry about what my mother did to your father,” she says quickly. “I didn’t have time—before—to apologise for that.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” Dorian tells her, though his face is pale. “ You didn’t kill him, and you couldn’t have done anything to stop it. You didn’t even know.”
“I’m still sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry you went through that at all.”
She came to Gideon’s funeral with his killer. Her mother watched her pick flowers for him .
Soren arrives before she can fixate too much on that thought. He appears at the threshold, utterly silent. His gaze flicks between the two of them.
“Selene,” he says. “I’m afraid I haven’t found anything—”
“I see.”
A moment of silence passes between the three of them.
“You’re really going to marry him?” Soren asks eventually.
“Yes. Unless we can prove their guilt, what choice do I have?”
Dorian raises a hand. “Have you considered telling King Alden directly?” he suggests.
“We tried that,” Soren tells him. “You ended up in jail.”
“Jail? Golly, that sounds serious.”
Soren and Selene both glance down at their feet. The Dorian that they knew was used to danger, used to so much in a way that this one just isn’t.
He’s lost at least a third of his life. Of course he’s different.
“But I went to him—not Selene?” Dorian continues.
“Is that different?”
“Of course. A young man of poor social standing accusing a Duke is one thing, but a young woman—the daughter of a friend of the King’s—with everything to lose standing out against her own mother and her fiancé? Completely different.”
Selene admits the thought has crossed her mind, but it’s still not the safest path—not for everyone else. “Alden would still need proof before he could arrest anyone,” she reminds him. “He could be wary of Ashvold. He could attempt to prevent the invasion. It wouldn’t eliminate Eirik as a threat.”
“You wouldn’t have to marry him, though.”
Why does he even care?
“Haverland isn’t safe as long as he’s alive,” she reminds him.
“If you get caught—”
“It doesn’t matter!” she yells, because although she doesn’t want to be caught—although she’s trusting people to believe a sweet young woman like her could never possibly be guilty of murder—she knows she’d still risk it anyway. One life to save thousands .
Dorian goes quiet. He doesn’t speak again.
Selene turns back to Soren, ignoring the guilt she feels for snapping at Dorian. She cannot waver in her resolve now. Guilt has no place here. “We have three more days,” she says. “After that… I will marry Eirik. I will go back to Ashvold with him. And I will kill him.”