Page 77 of A Fragile Enchantment

Kit set to work anew. He tore open every drawer and every cabinet. He unearthed correspondence from all corners of the empire. He disassembled the room with the same mercenary precision of a hunter dressing a kill. By the end of it, they were practically drowning in paper. He bent over the desk, his fingers clawed around the edges.

“It started with our father, decades ago,” he said. “Machland wasn’t the only colony that rebelled around that time, and the old man’s attempts to crush them all at once were enormously expensive. It was a losing battle to begin with, but he was scrabbling desperately to keep his hold on the empire. He drained our resources for the sake of his own ego.”

Niamh could not imagine how much bloodshed had come from so many wars. And now, she dreaded to think what would have happened in the Machlish War of Independence if the king hadn’t divided his focus. They might very well have been crushed.

“And then,” Kit continued, his bitterness only growing, “when he lost, he soothed himself by building pretty, useless things—such as the palace he’s currently rotting away in. That thing is a monstrosity made of gold. Not to mention the expense of keepingall of his mistresses, his taste for laudanum, the art he collected… The debt he racked up is astronomical.”

“And he left all of this to Jack,” Niamh said quietly, “without bothering to prepare him.”

“Exactly,” he said thinly. “It looks like Jack has been struggling to plug the holes ever since, all while trying to maintain an illusion of normalcy. One of his biggest investors right now is the Duke of Pelinor. Sinclair’s father.”

Her heart sank. “Oh, no.”

Kit set to pacing. “A man who has made half his fortune from exploiting the Machlish. He was a landlord before the rebellion, and now, he uses cheap Machlish labor to maximize his own profits.”

Which meant that Jack couldn’t afford to anger him.

Niamh leaned against the desk when a sudden wave of nausea came over her. “So that is why he refuses to engage with the protesters.”

“Avaland is hemorrhaging money,” Kit said, “and he’s throwing even more of it at this wedding.Why?”

All at once, it dawned on her.Thiswas what Lovelace wanted.Thiswas what they suspected: debts, bribes, corruption. Avaland was a kingdom held together with gold paint, a prayer, and the will of one man determined to shoulder the weight alone.

Kit swiped everything off the desk. The ledgers clattered to the floor. Papers spilled across the room. “How could he have kept all this from me?”

Niamh rested a hand on his elbow. “You were too young.”

“It’s no excuse,” he snarled. “He’s an idiot. If he were to drop dead tonight, all of this would fall to whatever poor bastard Parliament saw fit to appoint, and none of them is competent enough to conceal it as well as he has. I could have helped him. But I can’t step in if I have no idea what I’m up against.”

“This isn’t your responsibility to fix, Kit,” Niamh said. “You were not even here. You didn’t create this mess.”

“Neither did he. Fuck,” Kit muttered. “Fuck. Sorry.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he said after a moment. His anger melted away, and all that remained on his face was steely determination. “This is good.”

Niamh gawped at him, stunned. “Are you feeling quite well? I hardly see how this can be good by any stretch of the imagination.”

“I’ve never felt better. I feel like there is something I cando.” He raked his hair out of his face. “For so long, I’ve felt completely powerless—like I haven’t been free a day in my life. I thought I would never escape—not from my family, not from the past, not from my own mind. Before I came back, no matter if I quit drinking or didn’t, living hardly seemed worth it. I was stranded on a farm in Helles, with no one I knew and nothing to do but think about all the things I’d lost and all the ways I’d failed.

“But one day, I got a look at what I’d become. The man who owned the olive grove found me passed out. It wasn’t a pretty sight, apparently.” He scoffed. “When I came to, he sat me down and told me, ‘I’ve seen many men like you over the years. You don’t have to hurt yourself because someone else hurt you.’ I knew then I had a choice. I was either going to die there, or I was going to live out of spite.”

Niamh almost smiled. How very like him, even in the depths of despair, to cling tospite.

“I’m still here, by some miracle. I still don’t know how to be vulnerable. I still don’t know how to live with myself most days. I still don’t know how to be a good person. But this is a start.” He looked to the ledgers he’d scattered across the floor. “I climbed out of oblivion, and my life is finally my own. I finally know what I want. I want to make things right. I want…”

He cut himself off. But he did not need to finish his sentence for her to understand.

I want you.

Niamh stumbled backward a step and bumped into the shelf.An astrolabe wobbled precariously behind her. “You can’t joke like that.”

“I’m not joking.”

They stood close enough to share each other’s breath—a cruelty. Because no matter how he felt, it did not change their difference in stations. It didn’t change the fact that this could never be.

“But… I…” It took her a moment to remember how to speak. “You have to be! You were right to suggest we stay away from each other. I am inelegant and silly and—and I will make a mess of everything. I already have! I am bad for you in every possible way.”