Everything stopped.

For an instant, my mind emptied.

Then I saw the malicious amusement in his eyes.

“You look ready to cry.”

He leaned back lazily and watched me.

“Do you love him?”

I drew a breath and forced down my anger.

“Please take me to him.”

His smile worsened.

“I could. Why should I?”

I studied him again.

Let my thoughts settle.

“An unacknowledged son for more than twenty years. Now you return publicly, just as Lucian is at his weakest. You want a place in the family.”

The amusement faded.

I had found it.

I smiled slightly.

“Dorian.”

I leaned closer.

In his amber eyes, I saw my new face.

“I can help.”

He narrowed his eyes and considered me.

The rain grew heavier.

I sneezed.

In the middle of our solemn negotiation, he laughed.

“Get in.”

He opened the drinks compartment and gave me water.

The car headed toward Evergreen.

At least one thing was certain.

Lucian wasn’t dead.

I unscrewed the bottle and took a sip.

Something touched my head.

I looked sideways.

Dorian held a suppressed pistol against me.

“How can you help?”

I closed the bottle and met his eyes across the gun.

“Remove the stigma. Give you standing to compete with Lucian on equal terms.”

He watched me silently.

“Why should I believe you?”

“You lose nothing by trying. You investigated me while I was unconscious. You know I don’t belong to any Blackwood faction.”

Blackwood blood ran in him.

His birth had made him more suspicious, not less.

He hadn’t saved me out of sudden kindness.

I had said Lucian’s name.

That made him curious.

He would have looked into my past.

But he would never imagine another soul lived inside this body.

Nora was simply an abused young woman with an intellectual disability.

A stolen heiress.

Her background was clean.

Let him look.

After a pause, he put the gun away.

“What are you to him?”

I remembered everything.

My expression softened.

So did the ache inside me.

“I owe him. More than I can say.”

Enough to spend this life repaying it.

We reached Evergreen Medical Retreat.

Most people knew it as the country’s largest medicinal garden, growing rare herbs of every kind.

Only a small circle knew it was also a hospital.

Some of the finest physicians in the country worked here.

Their patients were people with extraordinary power.

As I followed Dorian, security patrols passed us.

I looked twice.

Armed officers.

He led me to a two-story building.

“Mr. Blackwood. Stop there.”

I knew that voice.

I dug my nails into my palm to control myself.

Miles approached.

Lucian had to be inside.

He blocked Dorian’s path and gave me a cool glance.

“My employer needs rest. If you’ve come to visit, another day.”

“Is he out of danger? Has he woken?”

The questions escaped before I could stop them.

Miles frowned.

“What does that have to do with you? Dorian’s new companion seems unusually interested in his brother.”

He thought I was a kept woman.

I began to explain.

An aide rushed out of the building.

“His condition’s deteriorating. We need emergency intervention now.”

Miles’s face changed.

He turned and hurried inside.

“Where’s Dr. Hartwell?”

“On his way. They’ve moved Mr. Blackwood into the treatment room.”

“If anything happens to him—”

I caught his arm.

He turned with murder in his eyes, paused at the sight of me, then frowned harder.

“What are you doing? Being Dorian’s woman won’t stop me—”

“Take me to him.”

My voice trembled.

Tears gathered.

I would tell him.

Once Miles knew who I was, he would let me see Lucian.

“Miles. I’m st—”

Thunder exploded.

Lightning struck less than two feet from me.

I turned stiffly.

A blackened pit smoked in the ground.

The burned smell filled the air.

If I said who I was, would heaven kill me?

I stared.

Miles’s frown deepened.

“How do you know my name? Who did you say you were?”

What could I say now?

I might die before reaching Lucian.

“I was trying to say I’m studying under Dr. Elias Wren. And I’m not Dorian’s companion.”

The lie came from desperation.

“Let me see him. I might be able to help.”

“The Healing Sage’s student?”

Miles clearly didn’t believe me.

“I can confirm it.”

Dorian stepped forward.

“She is. That’s why I brought her. I thought she might help my dear brother.”

He looked me over with undisguised disdain.

“Otherwise, you should know my tastes are better than this. I don’t keep underfed little birds.”

I said nothing.

At last, Miles let me in.

Dorian stayed outside.

“Until my employer says otherwise, you don’t approach him. And until he’s safely out of danger, you don’t leave.”

The meaning was clear.

He had brought me.

If I hurt Lucian, he would answer for it.

“Good,” I told Miles quietly. “Stay suspicious. Dorian isn’t harmless.”

He gave me a complicated look.

Then took me upstairs without answering.

The second floor held not only a bedroom but a fully equipped emergency operating room.

A concealed internal door connected them.

Lucian had already been placed on the table.

At last.

I was seeing him again.

Real.

Someone I could touch.

He lay so pale and still he looked like a perfect sculpture.

Without life.

Tears rushed into my eyes.

I moved toward him before I could stop myself.

“What are you doing?”

Miles seized my shoulder.

Pain shot through the bone.

It brought me back.

To him, I was a stranger.

Before I could invent an explanation, Dr. Hartwell hurried in.

Miles pushed me aside.

“Doctor. Please. He was improving. Why is he suddenly critical again?”