For two days she’d refused to pick it up. She’d set it on the dresser in her room and ignored it. This afternoon, as Anatol was on his way out the door for the afternoon, he’d put it in her hands. “Try it,” he’d urged her. “I read it while I was at Belai even though it was a forbidden book.”

“Forbidden?” she’d asked.

“Illicitly published, like Gregorio’s tracts. The whole story is in there.” He’d tapped the cover and left the house.

She’d watched him leave the house, bound for she didn’t know where. She didn’t like that he was leaving. The Revolutionaries were still out there, yet they could hardly be expected to stay inside Gregorio’s town house for months on end.

The day had been beautiful. Unusually warm for so early in the spring, so she’d taken a glass of wine out onto the porch and settled in to at least look at the book, which had been carefully copied by hand and was probably quite valuable. Soon she’d been leafing through pages as fast as she could read.

Apparently there had been all sorts of inventions in recent years, but the royals had forced the shutdown of most of them, save the ones that benefited them in some way or had improved their lives—like artificial light and heating, for example. The rest of the inventions had been gathered up, placed in a large storage facility, and locked up. The royals, the book posited, feared the inventions would take power from their hands and place it in the hands of the merchants and manufacturers, changing the face of Milzyr’s economy forever.

Evangeline wasn’t sure she believed any of it, but that wasn’t the most interesting part of the book for her anyway. She loved reading about the various inventions, both those in progress and those already created. She wanted to go see and touch them for herself. Things like a small steam-powered transport that would replace the carriage, though she couldn’t see why that was necessary. Or a contraption that would actually stitch material, a thing that sounded wonderful and unbelievable to her. She couldn’t imagine how it might be accomplished.

“Like the book?”

Evangeline squealed in surprise and jerked, almost tossing the book to the ground. She looked up to find Gregorio in the doorway with an apple in one hand. “Do you have to sneak up on people that way?”

“I made lots of noise in the kitchen. I figured you knew I was here.”

“No.” She pinched her face a little, unwilling to give him an inch. “I’ve been engrossed in my reading.”

He grinned at her and then took a snapping bite out of the apple. Just looking at him that way, leaning up against the door frame, his thick hair mussed and his top shirt buttons undone, made her stomach do a little flip. An unwanted flip.

Making sure he saw she was curling her lip at him, she gave her attention to the book once more and hoped he’d go away.

Instead, he sat down in the chair next to her. The man could not take a hint.

She lifted her gaze from the page to find him staring.

“Where did Pearl go?” Pearl was the cook.

“She went to the market. She’s getting ingredients for dinner. Giana is cleaning the upstairs as we speak.”

“And where’s Anatol?”

She frowned, glancing down at her book and adjusting her position in the chair. “Out. He wouldn’t tell me where he was going.” She didn’t want to admit it bothered her that Anatol would keep a secret from her.

He didn’t say anything else, so she attempted to finish the paragraph she’d already started twice.

Gregorio took another bite of his apple. “Beautiful day.”

With a sigh, she gave up and closed the book. “Why aren’t you at Belai?”

“I decided to take the rest of the day off.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Really? I thought I’d never hear you say something like that.”

“I decided that for everyone’s well-being, I need to relax a little. Things get tense with so many opinions vying for attention.” He took another bite of apple and chewed. “The representatives from the provinces have arrived and it’s mass confusion. Everyone speaks at the same time and over everyone else. Most of them want the same things, but are saying it all differently and none of them will listen long enough to realize it.”

Smugness washed over her. “I could have told you that would happen. Not everyone can have a say in government. Not everyone’s ideas can be realized. Not everyone can be right.”

“I agree with you, Evangeline. That’s why majority rules. There are votes, wherein everyone gets to register their opinion, but, in the end, it’s the numbers that make the decision. The most votes wins.”

“I predict discord.”

He laughed. “Oh, I do, too, Evangeline. Beautiful, tumultuous discord during which everyone gets their voice heard, if not all of their dreams realized.”

Sniffing, she glanced away from him. “Better than what was before.”

“Much. In this system of government the people will be healthy enough to make their will known. There’s a loaf of bread for every peasant table these days now that the royals are gone.”

“Dead, you mean.”

His face shuttered. “Some survived. Many J’Edaeii as well. They’re free now, though they’ve been stripped of their wealth. Now they must make it on their own merit.”

Yes, and she was still deciding what she was going to do in this brave new world where her magick was a hindrance instead of an honor.

“Speaking of which, I would like to offer you some sewing lessons. I know you were taking them before Anatol was captured. I was hoping you’d want to continue down that path. Anatol tells me you’re very talented, and clothing design could be a way for you to stand on your own financially.”

She looked down at the cover of the book, tracing the title with her fingertip. “I can’t accept your generosity, Gregorio. You’ve already done so much for us as it is. Anatol is healed now. We should be leaving your house, not making ourselves more beholden to you.”

“You are not and will never be beholden to me for anything, Evangeline. And you’re most certainly welcome to stay as long as you wish. In fact, I hope that you both do stay. It’s been much less lonely in my house with you and Anatol here, and Anatol has been helping me understand the perspective of the noble people, who, after all, are part of the governance themselves now. They also have a say.”

Yes, but it was dangerous for her to stay here. Dangerous because of her attraction to Gregorio. She wanted Gregorio, that was true—but she didn’t want messy emotional complications. She’d barely managed to learn to control her newfound empathy; adding Gregorio into the mix now would throw her into chaos again.

She needed less emotion, not more. Anatol, she was sure, would disagree with her. He would tell her she needed to explore all her newfound feelings, not look for ways to suppress them.

She studied Gregorio. This man ignited all sorts of new feelings in her.

“You never answered my question.”

She looked up from the cover of the book and realized she’d been lost in thought. “It’s true I will need to find some sort of livelihood for myself and I enjoy designing clothes.”

“Good. It’s settled then. I’ll have Emily come over first thing tomorrow morning. The upside is,” he looked pointedly at the book, “she’ll be showing you how to sew on a stitching machine.”

Excitement made her face light up. “Really? Like the one described in this book?”

He nodded. “It’s one of only five in existence. Soon they’ll fill every dressmaker’s shop and be the way all clothing is produced. You’ll be among the first to learn how to do it.”

“That’s—” She swallowed a laugh, again not interested in encouraging him. Yet she was pleased and very excited. “That’s wonderful. Now I’ll have something to do with my days again. I’ve been feeling very idle.”

“What were your days at the palace like?”

“Full from morning until night. Every day I practiced with my magick, getting ready for the day I would audition to become J’Edaeii. Anatol, too. We had classes as well, though education always came second to the training of our magick.”

“Do you want to go back to using your magick on a daily basis?”

“I don’t see any possibilities for that. Most people don’t like to have their emotions manipulated. Anatol’s skill with illusion is perhaps viable since it’s amusing, but my magick is intrusive. It could get me beheaded, even now in this new, glorious, blood-free world.” She couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm out of her voice toward the end. She laughed. “I suppose I could be a performance artist, dancing and weaving emotion on a street corner for a few coins.”

“So you think it will never again be possible for you to use your magick.”

“Not openly.”

“Not . . . openly?”

She smiled and tilted her head to the side. “Gregorio, I use my magick every day. I’m very empathic.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple working.

“That’s right. I pretty much always know what you’re feeling.”

He hesitated a moment and then leaned forward. “So what am I feeling right now, Evangeline?”

“Lust,” she answered right away. She blinked slowly. “It’s what you’re usually feeling, along with some other flavorings to blend.”

“Any ideas as to why I feel lust so often when I’m around you?”

She looked back at him, holding his gaze coolly. “I have a couple. Maybe just one.”

“There’s only one for me.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Not according to Lilya. She says you’re a regular.”

“Does that bother you, Evangeline?”

“Of course it doesn’t bother me, Gregorio,” she snapped. “I’m simply pointing out your lie.”

He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hand over his tired face. The half-eaten apple hung in one limp hand draped over the armrest. “I haven’t been to the Temple of Dreams in weeks.”

“Why?”

Gregorio caught and held her gaze. His pupils seemed to grow larger and darker. “Because no woman can compare to the one I want.”

“That’s the real reason you want me and Anatol to stay, isn’t it? Because you think you’ll eventually get to sleep with me.”

“And you, Evangeline, what do you want?”

Anatol. Gregorio. Both of them. Her body wanted them both, but her mind knew it was a bad idea.

She glanced away from him, afraid her eyes might reveal her desire for him. “I want to not be in this situation.”

Anatol appeared on her right, startling her for the second time that afternoon. “What are you two talking about?”

She made a frustrated noise, held her book to her chest, and stood. “Ask Gregorio. I’m going to my room.”

As she left she could hear their exchange. “What’s wrong with her?” Anatol asked.

“Me,” Gregorio answered.

That was true enough.

She also brought a heavy iron contraption with her that Anatol helped her to carry and set up before he faded away to do whatever mysterious thing he was doing every day. The stitching machine had a needle set into a small metal piece that moved up and down, presumably into the fabric. Instead of being powered with elusian crystal, there were small pedals that hooked up to the machine to work it.

Evangeline stared at it, trying to figure out how it operated while Emily bustled around, setting things up. Finally Emily stood back. “All right. Ready for your first lesson?”

She smiled. “I can’t wait.” Finally, something to throw herself into that didn’t involve either of the men. Something that would be hers and only hers. She hesitated and then added shyly, “I have some designs.”

“Excellent! That will be a great place to begin.”

They spent the day with her designs and the stitching machine. Evangeline ate up every lesson that Emily had to teach and wanted more. She hadn’t been this interested in anything since training for her audition to become J’Edaeii. By the end of the day, Evangeline had made her first stitches on the new machine, beaming the whole time she did it.

Anatol came home in the late afternoon and Evangeline forgot to be grumpy with him for the secret he was keeping. Gregorio came home not long after and they settled in to a dinner of roasted lamb with a rosemary dressing that the cook had prepared.

“Emily tells me your designs show promise.” Gregorio raised a forkful to his mouth.

She suppressed a flush of optimism at the praise. “Yes, but she also told me I would need to change the fabrics I use. They’re too rich for the market I’m aiming to reach.”

“That’s an easy change.”

She frowned. “Not really. The type of fabric determines the cut, the way the dress drapes, all sorts of things.”

“You’re intelligent and resourceful, not to mention determined. I have no doubt that you’ll find a way to make it work. If you need to buy fabric to experiment with, feel free. Money is no object.”

She set her fork down with a displeased sounding clink on the table.

“Don’t you like your dinner?” Gregorio asked.

“The dinner is wonderful.”

Gregorio set his glass down and gave her his full attention. “Have I said something to upset you?”

“This is not the Temple of Dreams, Gregorio. There is no price on my body.”

Gregorio frowned. “I didn’t mean—”

“Really? Because that’s how it sounded.” She sighed and removed her napkin from her lap, placing it alongside her plate. “You’ve done too much for us as it is. Maybe it’s time we leave, Anatol.”

Up until now Anatol had been seemingly ignoring the exchange, calmly chewing his food and sipping his wine. “I don’t think that making you a whore is what Gregorio intends.” He looked over at Gregorio. “It might be time we reveal our surprise.”

Gregorio watched her with wary eyes. “She might take it the wrong way.”

She glanced between the two men. “What . . . surprise?”

Gregorio set his napkin alongside his plate and pushed away from the table. “First, I want to make it clear that I didn’t do this to buy your affections. I have other reasons for spending my money on you, chief of which are feelings of guilt. I owe you a new livelihood.” He paused. “Anatol, do you want to tell her?”

“Gregorio and I want to help set you up in your own shop. Gregorio organized the instruction you need and I was busy locating and renting the shop. We didn’t tell you because—” He broke off, pushing a hand through his hair. “It was meant to be a happy surprise.”

“A shop of my own?”

“Yes.”

She swallowed hard, looking down at the table. “I’m very touched that you two would go to such great lengths for me.” Now she felt foolish for overreacting to Gregorio’s comment. Managing this onslaught of emotion was still not her strongest ability.

“Does that mean you want it?” Gregorio asked.

She considered the issue for a moment and then met his gaze, then Anatol’s. “What you have done is truly wonderful, but I want to build this business on my own. I want it to be mine. I need the lessons to get me started, but the rest of it—finding and renting the shop—I want to do that part. I need something outside of myself to focus on. Most of all, I need a challenge like the one I had at Belai, a goal. Otherwise I’m going to shrivel up.”

When she’d finished speaking, both the men were watching her intently. Anatol appeared confused, but Gregorio’s eyes shone with respect.

Gregorio nodded. “You’re strong, intelligent, and determined. I think you can do it on your own.”

“Thank you. What you two did . . . it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” Emotion clogged her throat and she swallowed hard, cursing it. How did people cope with so many feelings bombarding them at once? Thankful sorrow on the heels of angry indignation. It was like being caught in a storm.

“I should have seen that you’d want to build the business on your own,” said Anatol. “You’re a different woman than the one who lived at Belai.” He meant that a scant couple of months ago she would have expected everything be handed to her. Now she understood the look of confusion on his face. “I’ll make the arrangements to halt the rental of the shop tomorrow morning.”

“I’m glad you understand.”

“I’m only sorry the possibility didn’t occur to me sooner.”

“Once I learn the stitching machine better and come up with a few solid designs I think I can sell, I’ll look into building a business. I’ll start out slow because I’ll want to use my own money. That means locating clients without a storefront at first.”

“It sounds like you’ve already thought about this.” Gregorio rose and began clearing the table. After preparing the meal, the cook had left for the evening.

She and Anatol rose and began to help him. “It may be the only thing I’m capable of doing in this new magick-free world.”

“I hope it’s not magick-free forever,” Gregorio growled. “The magicked are Rylisk’s most valuable resource.”

“I thought elusian crystal was our most important resource,” Evangeline quipped lightly.

Gregorio halted in the doorway with plates in his hands. “Are you still planning to leave, Evangeline?”

She paused, glancing between the two men. She and Anatol should leave. Danger still lurked in Milzyr for the magicked, but they couldn’t hide in Gregorio’s town house forever. They needed to stand on their own.

And then there was Gregorio, himself. The man left a confused tangle in her stomach that she couldn’t parse. Part of her wanted to run away from him and the other part wanted to dash straight into his arms.

Fidgeting, she looked at Anatol. “The time is nearing, don’t you think?”

“Nearing, yes, but it hasn’t arrived.” Anatol’s eyes held hers. “I want to keep you as safe as I can and safe is here.”

“Good,” answered Gregorio with a happy smile, “then it’s settled. You stay where it’s safe and I can keep the loneliness at bay a little longer. The arrangement works for all of us.”

They finished clearing the table and Anatol headed up to bed. “Are you coming?” he asked Evangeline as he stood at the bottom of the stairs.

She walked to him. “Not yet. I want to apologize to Gregorio for overreacting earlier.”

He cupped her cheek in his hand. “He’s a good man.”

“I know he is.”

He searched her eyes. “I love you, Evangeline.”

She studied his face, wanting to tell him she loved him back, but the words just wouldn’t come. Her feelings for him ran so deep, but she wasn’t totally sure what it was she felt. Was it love? And if it was love, to admit it . . . A shadow of grief stole her body heat for a moment. To admit she loved him would be opening herself to unimaginable pain if—when—he rejected her.

Surely at some point Anatol would see she was still more trouble than she was worth, changes in her since Belai or not.

He leaned in and kissed her lips softly. “It’s all right. You don’t have to say it back.” Then he turned and went up the stairs.

Hugging herself and wanting to run up the stairs after Anatol, she said, “I wanted to apologize for earlier. It was wrong of me to assume the worst about you.”

“It’s all right.” He threw the towel onto the table. “Game of strategia before bed?”

She opened her mouth to say no, but it was time she stopped punishing Gregorio. Still, the prospect of spending time with him alone always curled something in her gut—a mix of anticipation and reluctance. She tried to smile, but failed. “Sounds like fun.”

“You don’t sound all that excited about it.”

“No, I want to play. Really.” She managed a halfhearted smile.

They headed into the study and Gregorio set up the board while she wandered over to the fire. “So, aside from the chaos, has the shiny new political system of Rylisk been taking shape?”

He looked up from the board. “It has. We’ve been making progress, though it’s messy at times. Democracy is a cacophony of conflicting voices.”

“I have to say that I’m impressed you haven’t asked me to come in and help to calm and influence their emotions.”

He finished setting up the last pieces and then motioned to the chair opposite him. She sat. “Well, if I did that I would be infringing on their free will and basic rights. The new government has a goal of honoring those.” He shook his head. “I’ll never ask you to use your magick in that way, Evangeline. Not you and not Anatol.”

She pressed her lips together and looked down at the board, impressed by his answer. “Would you like to move first? I’m prepared to give you a head start.” She lifted an eyebrow and smiled saucily.

He laughed. “Do you think you can beat me tonight, Evangeline?”

“There’s a first time for everything. I beat Anatol nearly every time I play him.”

“Ah, well, we will see.” He made his first move.

“You and Anatol grew up together at Belai?” he commented after a few minutes spent in silent strategy.

“We did.” She placed her tongue at the corner of her mouth and frowned at the board. Then she made her move, taking his ebony archer. “Aha!” She clapped.

“Nicely done.”

“Thank you.” She inclined her head and waited for him to make his next move. “We lived together at Belai and we knew each other, but we were never close. It wasn’t until the siege and its aftermath that we became friends.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I wasn’t close to anyone at Belai, not really. Well, there was one person whom I called a good friend.”

“Tell me.”

She related the story about Annetka. This time when she talked about her, she felt light instead of heavy, remembering the good times they’d had together. “But she was the only one who really knew me there.”

“Why?”

She frowned at the board. “I don’t remember when or why, but at some point the backlash of my gift presented itself. I suspect I triggered it myself after I was taken from my family. I remember feeling grief like nothing I’ve endured since I was first brought to Belai. Annetka was the only one who made it through the barriers, probably because she was such a special little girl. In any case, I ceased to feel most of my own emotions in order to shield myself from feeling everyone else’s. That made me incapable of forming any meaningful relationships.”

“That must have been hard for you.”

“Not really. I didn’t know any different.”

“And now?”

“Now ...” She considered her answer while he finally made his move. “Now there are times I miss those walls that protected me so very well, but there are other times—the good times—that make me regret they ever went up at all. As I grew up, I missed a lot by not interacting with my peers. In a way, it feels as though I were never a child. I grieve for that woman I was.”

“Do you ever wonder what your childhood would have been like if you’d stayed with your family?”

She made her move on the board and then sat back in her chair. “Sometimes I wish I’d been left with them. The housemother at Belai told me my father fought the royals when they took me. She told me his leg was badly injured as a result.”

Gregorio fell silent, studying the board fiercely. “Don’t you want to find them?”

She didn’t reply, concentrating on the game for a long time before replying. “I don’t know. There is a dark fear deep inside me that makes me afraid to seek them out.”

“You have time to think about it.”

She nodded.

They fell into a companionable silence, once in a while discussing books that Evangeline had read from Gregorio’s library. By the end of the game she’d forgotten she was supposed to feel animosity toward the man and instead purely enjoyed his company.

Gregorio and Anatol were different in that Anatol touched her heart and Gregorio touched her mind. She was attracted to both of them, but in many ways they were the flip side of the same coin. Anatol was emotional fire and not always logical. He was sensitive and understood people. Gregorio, while also passionate, was as rational and intelligent as a man could be. She could see what each of them could offer her.

But she wondered what it was that she offered these men. Why, exactly, they were both so attracted to her? In this new world of constant emotion, she had bouts of severe self-confidence. The old Evangeline would never have asked such a question.

Finally they were down to their last few moves. Evangeline made her final move and captured Gregorio’s green goddess, winning her the game. She threw her arms up and laughed with the piece in her hand.

Gregorio leaned back in his chair and smiled at her. “You’re getting way too good at this game, Evangeline.”

She lowered her arms and looked at him suspiciously. “You didn’t let me win, did you?”

He leaned forward. “I’m very serious about strategia. I would never let any opponent win, not even one as beautiful as you. You’re just an excellent player.”

Her smile broadened even as she flushed from the compliment—both of them. “Good.”

She set the piece back onto the ravaged game board and looked at the tall clock ticking away in the room. They’d spent a long time on the game and it was now into the early morning. “That was fun, but I need to go to bed. Emily is coming in the morning to give me more lessons.”

She stood and he did as well. Smiling a little, she inclined her head. “Good night, Gregorio.” Then she moved toward the door.

“Evangeline?”

She turned back to him.

“Do you like me even a little?”

Her smile faded. The problem was that she liked him a lot. She wasn’t sure, exactly, why that was a problem for her, since Anatol didn’t seem to think it was one. “I do like you, Gregorio.”

“Do you still blame me for the deaths of your friends?”

She studied him for a long moment. “No. You were easy to blame in the beginning, but the matter is far more complicated. I see that now.”

“I’m glad.”

She turned to leave again, but he caught her gently by the arm and turned her toward him again. He had a hard, hungry expression on his face and it made her stomach do a warm flip. She knew that expression.

Reaching out with her magick, she tasted his emotions and found undeniable desire. Her body responded to it like a flame to kindling. “Gregorio?” His name came out almost devoid of breath. Suddenly she saw where this was going. She wasn’t sure she could stop him from initiating it—she wasn’t sure she wanted to stop him.

He pushed her backward step by step, until he was pressing her up against the wall behind them, the strategia game board long forgotten. This was not a game.