I wilt.
There’s a soft knock on the door, then it opens to Iris, a tray propped in one hand. Smells gush in immediately, bacon and savory pastries and syrup, and I should be hungry.
But I watch her come in and set the tray at the foot of the bed.
My eyes go around the suite again. Seeing it for the first time. It’s all back in order. Clothes put away, desk straightened.
“Did you guys clean my suite?”
“Of course,” Iris says like it’s no big deal, but itisa big deal, every single thing they do is a big deal. “Now, what sounds good? Renee put extra cinnamon syrup in the pancakes for you.”
“She… knows?”
Iris’s face says the whole damn palace knows. But knows what? That Hex left me—no,left,notme,not just me—or that Dad threatened us or that I failed spectacularly? What story did Dad let out?
“It was announced this morning that I didn’t choose Halloween,” Iris says tentatively, testing each word before she adds the next to gauge my reaction. “And that’s why Hex left. But… the staff knows you’re upset. Or that it would be upsetting to you. They care about you, Coal.”
At one point, I would’ve been appalled that the whole palace was saturated in sympathy and pity over private matters in my life. I’d have been pissed off that Dad used this intensely personal heartbreak to validate his other lies. But I honestly don’t care.
Iris squishes in next to me on the bed, warm wool dress and boots and all, and arranges the comforter over us. I lean back against the pillows and she drops her head to my shoulder and throws her arm across my stomach.
“Did he sleep?” she asks Kris on my other side.
“Not enough.”
“I’m right here,” I say pathetically.
She hugs me. “Yes. And we are too.”
I sniff. Scrub a hand over my mouth and close my eyes. “So he’s really—”
“Gone.” I feel her looking at me, but I can’t open my eyes. “Last night.”
“And I guess you and I are—”
Iris plucks at a string on my shirt. “Yeah. That was announced too,” she says in a low, overcome voice.
I’d given her hope that there was a way out. That she could get something more for her life beyond duty.
I let her down too.
My arm comes up around her shoulders and I rest my chin on the top of her head.
“My, um. My phone.”
“He hasn’t texted you,” Kris says.
I tense. Because this was supposed to happen, right? There was never any reality where he would’ve stayed and rushed to my room and said he loves me, because it was never going to work. He knew from the start.
The back of my throat itches and I peel away from Iris to cup my hands over my face. She locks her fingers around my forearm but I hold in my darkness for a second, just a second, using every remaining ounce of my abilities tobreathe.
“What do I do now?” I don’t mean to speak, least of all something so goddamn self-centered. Haven’t I at least gotten better at that? But the question pushes up, the sole thing capable of growing in this wreckage, because it’d only been a few short weeks but he changed everything about me in a way that feels like destroying now.
I can’t,I can’t,go back to who I was before him. Aimless and useless and directionless and just, just,less.But the better version of me, the one I’d started to grow into, doesn’t exist without him.
Idon’t want to exist without him.
“You eat,” Iris whispers. “You sleep some more. Eventually, you get out of bed.”
