EMBER’S POV

And I stare at him, this enormous, scarred rogue who eats crème caramel and threatens kings, and I feel something rip open in my chest, because I know that.

I know that feeling in my bones. I spent years trying to go back to a mother who threw me away because the alternative was having no one at all.

“I’m sorry,” Silas says.

I blink. “What?”

“For how she’s used you.” His dark eyes hold mine, and there’s so much depth in them. “I don’t know the whole of it yet. But I know my sister, and I heard what you said about slapping her, and I know...