Camila's POV
"You pushed me, didn't you?" I asked for the hundredth time, that old fear surfacing again like rot.
"No!" His voice broke. "God, no, Camila. I swear to you, I didn't. I've made a thousand mistakes, but not that. I was the one who carried you to the infirmary. I was the one who begged them to save you—"
"Because you needed me alive," I snapped. "Not because you loved me."
Silence.
Then: "I love you now," he whispered.
It broke something in me.
Because I knew it was true.
And it wasn't enough.
That night, while he sat in his study, guilt and silence weighing down his spine, I made my next move.
I wrote one name at the top of the parchment: Thorne.
The real architect. The man behind the council's dirtiest operations.
The man who might know why my power mattered so much.
Then I wrote a second name: Killian. A man I once hated. A man who now might be the only one willing to help me burn the council to ash.
And finally…
Nathaniel.
Not in the enemies column.
