EMBER’S POV

He swallows hard.

“I made her carry my secrets and clean my messes and defend my choices to people who questioned them, and not ONCE did she ever refuse, because she trusted me that completely, and I have damned that trust in ways I can’t undo.”

The janitor has stopped mopping again. I don’t blame him.

“There has to be something,” Nathaniel says, and the begging in his voice is so naked it makes my chest hurt despite everything this man has done. “One last chance at doing right by her. Before the council decides my fate, before Knox decides my fate, before everything I’ve built comes down...