To heal a Rogue

LYSANDER

Amaranthine waited in the corridor, and my first, rather uncharitable thought was that she looked far too immaculate for this hour. She wore a full gown, her hair sculpted into an intricate style that must have cost a Luna’s Omega an hour of careful work, and her jewelry shimmered in the dim light at her throat and wrists. Every detail of her appearance seemed calculated, purposeful, as if she had dressed for a grand stage instead of a hospital hallway at three in the morning.

"It’s late," I said. "Is there a reason you wanted to see me?"

A flicker of hurt crossed her face, though I doubted its sincerity, and she revealed a covered dish from behind her back, presenting it to me with both hands as if it were a peace offering.

"I asked the kitchens to prepare this for her," she said. "For... I hear her name is Bonnie. I know it’s a small thing, but I wanted to do something." Her voice dropped, softer now, almost mournful. "It’s horrible, everything that’s been happening tonight. I was there in that hall, you know. I watched you nearly die in front of everyone. I still can’t stop thinking about it, if I’m honest. And now, on top of everything, enemies of the throne are trying to finish what they started with your new weapon."

I winced at the word before I could stop myself. "She isn’t a weapon."

Amaranthine’s eyes widened slightly, and she nodded fast, contrite. "You’re right. That was careless of me. Language matters more than I gave it credit for just now."

I reached for the dish, but she held on a moment longer, so we stood suspended in a strange, lingering pause, our fingers brushing along the rim in a silent standoff.

"I could come in," she said. "Feed her myself, if you’d like. Sit with her a while. Girls need girl time. I am sure with all the shitstorm happening. She will need it even more."

"That’s kind of you," I said, easing the dish fully from her grip, "but unnecessary. The staff here can manage, and I intend to stay with her myself."

She let it go easily enough, with no resistance at all. "Of course. I only meant to offer."

As she withdrew, her hand lingered on mine, warm and intentional, her thumb gliding briefly over my knuckles. She glanced up through her lashes, the tilt of her head carrying a practiced grace, rehearsed in a way I couldn’t quite pinpoint.

"Well," I said, gently extracting my hand. "Thank you for this." I studied her a moment, something about the whole visit still not sitting right with me. "What does Johann think about you being here, at this hour, alone?"

Something soured briefly behind her eyes. "He doesn’t control me. I’m free to do as I please."

"He is your fiancé," I said carefully. "You’re aware of exactly how he feels about me currently. I’d hate for there to be more drama stirred up if he learned you’d come here like this, unannounced, this late. Being nice to his enemies."

"I’m not worried about Johann," she said, a little too quickly.

"If you’re worried about bad blood between him and me," I continued, "you don’t need to be. He has every right to feel angry, considering everything that happened with the will. If our positions were reversed, I imagine I’d feel exactly the same." I softened my tone. "I understand, as his future bride, you might be concerned about what happens once I’m formally crowned. I want you to know I have no intention of retaliating against him. Not unless he’s carrying sins heavy enough to warrant it." I let that hang a moment, watching her face carefully. "All I can offer you, honestly, is this. Watch closely who you choose to marry."

She let out a small, nervous laugh, one hand coming up to touch the pendant at her throat. "Johann’s fiancée? Future wife?" Something close to pity crossed her expression then, quick and strange. "I see you don’t know yet."

"Know what?"

"Tomorrow is a brand new day," she said, sidestepping the question so smoothly it took me a second to notice she’d done it at all. "You’ve already had more than enough for one night. I’ll see you in the morning, Your Majesty. Then we can have a very important talk."

She bowed, slow and lingering, the gesture stretching well beyond what courtesy demanded, her gaze locked on mine as she straightened. The whole exchange left a heavy, nameless discomfort in my chest, one I had no desire to probe. She turned away, her heels striking a measured, echoing rhythm on the stone until the sound vanished around the corner.

I turned to the head healer, who’d been standing quietly by the door through the entire exchange, her expression carefully blank.

"Am I losing my mind," I said, "or was that entire interaction genuinely strange?"

"She was likely just trying to be kind, Your Majesty," the healer offered, though there was something diplomatic in the way she said it, like she was choosing her words as carefully as I’d choose mine.

"You don’t need to be diplomatic with me right now," I said. "We both just watched that happen."

I glanced down at the dish still balanced in my hands, noticing for the first time the delicate embroidery on the fabric covering it, a detail I had ignored until now.

"This has my cousin’s handwriting all over it, somehow," I said. "I don’t know how yet. But it does."

I held the dish out to her. "Toss it."

She hesitated, glancing between me and the covered plate. "Your Majesty, wouldn’t that seem needlessly cruel, given the gesture behind it?"

"I genuinely do not give a damn. It’s probably poisoned for all I know," I said.

Her expression shifted immediately, and she took it from me without further argument, holding it now as if it might bite her. "As you wish. I’ll see to it."

She disappeared down the corridor, and I pulled out my phone, thumb hovering over Fia’s contact for a moment before I typed the message out properly.

Can you come by, if you have the time? Bonnie needs you more than ever right now.

I sent the message and slipped my phone away, my mind looping back to everything Bonnie had told me. The man in her dreams, ever-changing, impossibly ancient by any reckoning, powerful enough to steal a Shelter witch’s magic in a heartbeat. No matter how I tried to steer my thoughts elsewhere, they kept catching on the same troubling point, again and again.

That tube, buried beneath the estate. The floating, hairless figure suspended in murky green water. The cursed demigod Lycaon.

It defied logic. Bradley had assured me the man was still deeply unconscious, sealed beneath fifteen generations of witchcraft meant to keep him that way. Yet the feeling clung to me, an instinctive certainty coiled low in my gut that the two were linked, no matter how impossible it looked on paper.

But I would not linger on it. Fia would know. If anyone in this entire kingdom could glimpse the shape of something the rest of us were missing, it would be her.

She could glimpse into the future after all.

I kept turning it all over, standing alone in the corridor, my thoughts knotted between Amaranthine’s unsettling visit and the figure suspended in that tank. Then I heard it: the crisp, measured click of heels on stone, drawing nearer, followed by a low, familiar chuckle that sent a chill racing up my arms before I could even place its source.

I turned.

At the far end of the corridor stood Queen Edelina, dressed head to toe in black, her expression unreadable in the low light, watching me with the patient, unhurried air of someone who’d been expecting to find me exactly here.

"Bradley told me I would find you here," she said.

When the heck did she return?

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