Chapter 4 The Prince Who Came At Midnight

• Athena wanted an apology in front of the family.
• I asked her to wait for Hermes.
• By evening, torches burned around the courtyard. My mother stood beside the fountain with her spear at her back. Orion kept an arm around Melantha. Paean lingered near the gate, his eyes on the ground.
• Hermes arrived carrying a blue crystal between two fingers.
• “A remarkably observant witness,” he said. “And much less talkative than most of my acquaintances.”
• Melantha went still.
• “That belongs to my household,” Athena said.
• “Thessa retrieved it at Callista’s request. The ward outside your storerooms.” Hermes held it up. “I thought you’d prefer its account to an argument.”
• Light unfolded above the fountain.
• Melantha gripped my wrist. She hit herself with my hand, glanced toward the stairs, and screamed. Orion shoved me into the pillar. A moment later, she checked the steps and let herself fall.
• The image ended.
• Orion’s arm fell from her waist.
• “It’s been altered,” Melantha whispered.
• Hermes offered Athena the crystal. “The ward’s seal is intact. You can examine it yourself.”
• My mother did not take it.
• “Why did you arrange this humiliation?” she asked me.
• I had prepared for denial. I had not prepared for her to watch the truth and find a way to make it my fault.
• “She framed me.” My voice came out thin. “You were about to make me apologize.”
• “You could have brought the crystal to me privately.”
• “Would that have changed what everyone was told about me?”
• No one answered.
• Orion took a step toward me. “Callista, I shouldn’t have pushed you. I was afraid for the baby.”
• I drew back before he could reach for my wrist.
• “You didn’t need to hurt me to help her.”
• He looked at the bruise. For once, he had nothing ready to say.
• The argument went on as the torches burned lower. Melantha called it panic, then a misunderstanding. Athena wanted the matter kept within the family. I sat on the fountain’s edge because my legs would no longer hold me, waiting for the one person who had promised to come.
• At midnight, the wind turned cold.
• Every flame bent toward the gate.
• Lysander stood beyond it.
• Shadows curled around his boots beneath a plain black cloak. He was broader than the boy I remembered, his face harder, but I knew him before he spoke. He crossed the courtyard with his eyes on me.
• Then he saw my wrist.
• “Who touched you?”
• Orion stepped forward. “This doesn’t concern you.”
• Lysander did not look at him. He stopped in front of me and held out his hand.
• “May I?”
• I nodded.
• His fingers closed around mine. His thumb passed beside the bruise, carefully avoiding it, and I had to swallow before I could speak. I had spent the whole day being told what I had done wrong. He was looking at what had been done to me.
• “It concerns me,” he said. “Callista has asked me to court her.”
• Melantha gave a strained laugh. “She asked this morning. Surely you won’t build your future on something a sick woman said in confusion.”
• “I’ve waited years to hear what she wants.” He finally looked up. “You can wait while she says it.”
• He opened his other hand. A black ribbon lay across his palm.
• “In the Underworld, we begin a courtship by tying our hands together before a witness. It promises honesty. Either of us may end it.”
• The ribbon stirred in the cold breeze.
• I had called him because I remembered kindness and needed somewhere to go. Now he was here, warm fingers around mine, asking for no certainty I could not give.
• “Callista,” he said, “will you let me stand beside you while you decide what comes next?”
• “Yes.”
• Hermes tied the ribbon around our joined wrists.
• Light burst across the courtyard stones.
• “She’s still promised to me,” Orion said.
• “She ended that promise,” Athena replied.
• Hope caught me off guard. I looked at her.
• “But I do not approve of this one.”
• Lysander’s fingers tightened around mine. “She hasn’t asked for your approval.”
• Athena’s spear appeared in her hand. Shadows gathered behind Lysander. I could feel both their power through the soles of my feet.
• I stood between them.
• “Enough. I’ve made my decision. You don’t get to fight over it.”
• Lysander let the shadows fall. After a moment, Athena lowered her spear.
• He untied the ribbon and fastened it around my wrist. Then he offered me his arm for the walk to his carriage.
• Orion followed us to the gate.
• “You don’t know him, Callista. The dead keep secrets.”
• I glanced at Lysander. There was much I did not know. I intended to learn it.
• “I knew you,” I told Orion. “That didn’t keep me safe.”
• Inside the carriage, my hands began to shake. I tucked them into my lap, but Lysander noticed.
• He sat across from me. “Do you want to talk?”
• I shook my head. Then, before I could lose my nerve, I reached for him.
• He moved beside me and opened his arms. I leaned against his chest. His cloak smelled of cedar and cold night air; beneath it, he was warm. His hand settled between my shoulders while I struggled to breathe without crying.
• “I imagined this differently,” he said.
• “Me ruining your cloak?”
• “Me being charming enough that you forgot to cry.”
• A laugh escaped before I could stop it.
• He felt it against his chest. When I looked up, he was smiling, close enough that I noticed a small crease at the corner of his mouth. I let myself stay there a moment longer.
• I admitted I had not eaten. He stopped beside a mortal night market and returned with honey cakes wrapped in paper. We sat together on the carriage step, sharing one while the vendors closed their stalls.
• For ten minutes, I did not have to defend myself.
• At his guest house, a guard was waiting with a bundle in gray cloth.
• “The weapons dealer you asked us to trace, my prince. He tried to sell it tonight.”
• Lysander’s face changed. He took the bundle into the lamplight.
• “I’ve been looking for it since the attack,” he told me.
• He unwrapped an iron blade. The hooked tip, the dark groove beside the edge—I knew them. My side ached before I understood why.
• It was the knife that had stolen three years of my life.
• An owl was stamped near the hilt.
• Athena’s seal.
• I gripped the edge of the table.
• Lysander looked at me. “Someone used a weapon from your mother’s house.”