Chapter 3

The next day, Victor sent for a healer to look at my shoulder. It wasn't out of any concern for me. He said a Crimson Keep marriage required both parties to record old injuries so the two clans couldn't bicker over them later.

It was a heartless reason, and oddly, that put me at ease.

When the healer peeled back the old scar behind my shoulder, his brow furrowed. "Wolf trap?"

I nodded. Victor sat by the window, leafing through ledgers, and he looked up at those words. "Three years ago, the snowy night?"

My fingers went stiff at that.

The healer asked, "Does the duke know about this?"

Victor closed the ledger. "The Alpha heir was caught in a wolf trap in Frostwood that year, and someone carried him back. The pack has spun it into a life debt ever since, trotting it out every year."

I lowered my head. "They all say Lily saved him."

Victor stepped closer. He didn't touch the scar, only studied it. "A wolf trap's teeth are set wide apart. That means only one thing. The second row of teeth grazed you while you were carrying someone on your back."

The healer nodded. "It's a rescuer's wound."

Victor's gaze dropped to my wrist, where a fine scar from the old silver knife still showed.

He asked, "Where is the silver knife?"

"She took it," I said.

"What's carved on the hilt?"

I met his eyes. "A crescent moon."

Victor went quiet for a few seconds. "The knife Lily carried last night had a sunflower on the hilt."

I froze and realized that the flaw was plain to see if anyone cared to look. In my previous life I'd said it a thousand times, but Noah never looked.

Victor looked down at my old scar and stated that Lily hadn't saved Noah. It was a faint murmur, yet the words fell like a key three years late, opening a door I'd been stuck behind all that time.

I didn't cry and only pulled my collar back up. "Are you going to tell him, Your Grace?"

"Do you want to tell him?"

I thought about it. In my previous life, I'd wanted this badly. I'd wanted Noah to regret it when he found out, my father to feel guilty, and Lily to be exposed.

But coming back, I realized the truth wasn't meant to bring them running back to me. It was meant to carry me out. I said, "Not for now."

Victor nodded. "Then not for now."

He didn't ask why, and he didn't decide for me.

By noon, an invitation card arrived from Moonvale. Lily and Noah were holding a delayed engagement party in three days, and they wanted me to attend it.

When Peter finished reading it aloud, for once, his face darkened.

Victor asked me, "Will you go?"

I looked at Lily's pretty handwriting on the card. [I'd be so happy if we were blessed by Eve.]

I closed the card. "I'll go."

But I wasn't going to bless them. I was going for my silver knife.

*****

On the day of the engagement party, Moonvale was decked with white roses. When I stepped down from the black carriage, every eye turned my way.

Some were shocked I was still alive, others that Victor had come with me.

Noah stood on the steps, and when he saw me, his face darkened. "You shouldn't have brought him."

I said, "The invitation said I could bring a plus one."

Victor stood at my side, his voice even. "If we're not welcome, I can take my lady home."

The words "my lady" turned Noah's stare colder.

Lily came down the steps in the white gown that had been meant for me, the waist cinched tight, the hem trailing across the floor. She reached out to embrace me. "Eve, I thought you wouldn't come."

I stepped back, and her arms caught nothing. Her eyes reddened at once. "Are you still angry with me?"

My eyes went to her waist, where the silver knife hung. The scabbard had been swapped, and the hilt was carved with a sunflower. It was pretty and fake.

I asked, "Where did you get that knife?" Lily's expression stiffened at the question.

Noah came over. "Evelyn, this isn't the place for you to cause a scene."

"I'm only asking about a knife," I said.

Noah said, "It's the token Lily left behind when she saved me."

I nodded and asked, "What's carved on the hilt?"

Noah frowned, and Lily clapped her hand over the hilt at once. "Eve, are you going to say this knife is yours again? I know you don't like me, but today is my engagement party with Noah."

Her voice was quiet, but plenty loud enough for everyone nearby to hear.

The looks people gave me shifted into that familiar plea. They didn't want me to make trouble, grab at things, or embarrass Lily.

Victor spoke up suddenly. "A werewolf token of gratitude, and no one runs a blood test on it?"