"If you want your own child, don't approach this half-heartedly," Kaian warned.
"I'm not going in half-heartedly," I said. "This doesn't feel like an emergency escape at all."
He understood my confusion. "Come. I'll show you what I mean."
Back in the kitchen by the dying fire, Kaian settled me on a warm seat before speaking quietly.
"This castle is surrounded by a moat. The drawbridge is raised at night, making escape impossible through the main gate." He paused meaningfully. "However, there's another way. Through the passages below, you can exit without lowering the drawbridge. There's a hidden entrance a short distance beyond the moat."
I nodded slowly, understanding dawning.
"Rowen Castle has never been directly attacked in war. It was Oberon's first capital, and even after the seat of power moved, this place remained a symbol of the kingdom's strength." His voice grew quieter. "That moat, those walls, the raised drawbridge at night—they're all defense. But I've just given you the castle's weakness."
The implications struck me. *If I knew this, someone could use it to attack him. To kill him.*
The thought terrified me more than anything else I'd experienced.
"What can you give me?" he asked, meeting my eyes.
The question was clear. He'd revealed the castle's greatest weakness to me—Vermont's daughter, his enemy's blood. What assurance could I possibly offer?
"Trust," he said before I could stumble through an answer. "You must never betray me. Give me your loyalty so absolute that I can believe in you."
The weight of those words settled on me.
I thought back to our conversation weeks before. *"I can't trust you, Claudel."* When I'd confessed my feelings, he'd said he couldn't trust me. When I'd asked how to earn his trust, he'd said: *"Have a baby."*
Now he was asking for trust while offering me his most dangerous secret.
*What if he loves me as much as I love him? What if he can't say it because of Vermont and Temnes?*
Looking up at him sitting beside me, I made my choice.
"I trust you," I said quietly. "You made me want to live. I will protect you."
He pulled me slowly into his arms.
"I guess so," he murmured against my hair.
The words weren't a declaration. But they were acknowledgment. They were enough.
I still craved a clear answer to my confession. But perhaps this was how a man like Kaian loved—through actions, through secrets shared, through trust offered in the darkness.
*If the baby is born safely, then maybe I'll hear the words I want.*
For now, I held him and waited, knowing that his revelation of the secret passage was his way of saying what he couldn't speak aloud.
The next morning, the kitchen echoed with the chef's anguished screams at discovering his hoarded bacon gone.
---
## Madame Cronac's Office, the Capital
Madame Cronac moved through her day mechanically.
Salon Arvo remained the most prestigious establishment in the capital, and visitors came constantly. Yet increasingly, she found herself staring southward toward Rowen, sighing without realizing it.
She knew Claudel was alive, thriving, had become the Duchess of Temnes. But knowing and *seeing* were different things.
During Claudel's time in the capital, she'd been tormented by proximity—so close, yet unable to approach without raising suspicion. There was nowhere a Duke would naturally go that would include his wife's unknown mother.
When Kaian took Claudel to Holderlay Round, Madame Cronac had almost followed. Only fear of discovery had stopped her.
But there had been that brief window when Claudel left Hannah and Madame Marcel at the hunting lodge.
*Just those few hours.* She'd prepared so carefully—perfume, combed hair, pretty clothes for her daughter. Such a small gift of her own labor.
She'd seen Claudel. That alone was a victory after ten years of waiting.
Yet daily, the burn scars that covered half her body reminded her of the cost of survival. In winter, they pulled and tore as if threatening to reopen. She had no money for expensive balms. Living with dead flesh crushed against living skin was its own torture.
But every night, she'd bitten her tongue against the urge to end it all, holding on to one thought: *I must live to see my daughter again.*
A knock broke through her reverie.
"Madame. A letter has arrived."
Her heart seized. "Bring it here. Leave me."
She locked her office door immediately.
In Oberon, those with resources used the telegraph—messages delivered across the kingdom in a day. But telegraph stations were monitored. Controlled. If someone wanted to intercept communications, they could.
Madame Cronac had learned from Kaian's methods. Five informants at Valmonde, each unaware of the others. Messages routed through different telegraph offices, creating confusion. Even if intercepted, the encryption would be unbreakable.
She'd taught Hannah the same methods. Safe communication, as long as Hannah never used her own name.
The letter was signed with a false identity: Erich Mannheim.
*Hannah.*
Only Hannah's messages came this way. She'd been careful—meticulous—about never compromising them.
Madame Cronac's hands trembled as she opened the letter.
The message used the coded language they'd established:
*[Mama. I have good news. There were fruits in the flowerpot that Mama had grown. I'm worried about pests and diseases, but I'll keep an eye on it. I ate all the saury. Next time, I think I'll make a jar of saury. Stay healthy.]*
Fruit in the flowerpot.
*Claudel is having a baby.*
The letter fell from Madame Cronac's hands as her knees gave way.
She collapsed to the floor, her forehead pressed against cold stone, and the cry she'd been suppressing for ten years—through fire, through pain, through loneliness and despair—finally broke free.
"Claudel... my baby..."
Through tears that wouldn't stop, she understood: her daughter would live on through this child. The family she'd lost in the fire would continue.
After all these years of survival, of endurance, of holding on to hope—it had happened.
*I will see my grandchild.*
The thought was almost too much to bear.
---