Page 115 of Devoured

But he doesn’t.

“You know, I’ve spent four days stuck in this closet that she calls a room,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of time to think. And I’ve come to one simple conclusion. Do you want to know what it is?”

I exhale hard. Struggle to refill my lungs. He waits for me to respond, but I can’t. Half the werewolves left. Half stayed. Which means I failed at what I was trying to do, and the world whirls around me in a cyclone of colors, of gazes, of werewolves and destruction and memories I don’t even believe to be real. I grab my head with a curse, and Sin reaches me in seconds, laying me back against the pillows and collecting the compress as if it’s somehow useful when my mind is imploding.

My heart races as Sin hovers over me, still pressing the damp washcloth to my forehead, my cheeks. “You. It’s you, Vanessa. You connect everything.”

“Sin—”

“What happened in that throne room? What happened to you that night?” He straightens, and the veins along his arms bulge as his muscles coil. He shoves his sleeves up past his elbows, tearing the cuffs in the process, then glances back at the tapestries, at the crimson horrors stitched across them. His gaze shutters. “I don’t care if Cora is behind it. I don’t care what you tell me. Just—tell me something. Tell me the truth. Please.” He looks back at me. “I love you, Vanessa. So let me help you. Let me protect you.”

His honesty blooms through the hollows of my chest. It curls around the rest of my aches, soothes the sickness in my stomach, until I can breathe easily again. But that doesn’t mean I can trust him. He’s still Sinclair Severi, crown prince and traitor. He’s still the boy who broke my heart.

“I’m not allowed,” I say quietly. “I—I can’t—”

“I see.” His hand tightens on the washcloth, but he doesn’t look particularly surprised either. “So you’ve been compelled.”

Not the truth, but not necessarily a lie. A shade in between—always the shades in between with Sin and me. There is no black and white with us. There can only ever be gray. There can only ever be parts. Part of him loves part of me, but that’s it. We can never have the whole of each other. We can never be more than this. Shattered and imperfect. Eternally irreparable.

“Yes,” I say, loathing the part of myself that cares. The part that believes he could still save us. “But please, you have to swear you won’t say anything to her.”

“I won’t.”

I raise an incredulous brow. “I mean it, Sin. You can’t fly off the handle again. That only made it worse for everyone.”

Our gazes lock, hold, before he exhales a ragged breath, dropping his hand and sitting on the edge of my bed. Staring at the wall, focusing on those ugly tapestries, he says, “Have you ever looked at a painting and felt like the artist was speaking directly to you? Like you understood every brushstroke and color so implicitly that there could be no other meaning than the one you conjured in your own head?” His expression hardens. “Only to then discover the real meaning and realize you had it wrong the entire time. You didn’t know a single thing about that painting. You were just caught up in what it could be, in your own perspective, in the way the light caught the shadows and the potential of the story.”

I shake my head, and he must sense the movement because he sighs. “Yeah. Me neither.”

I almost laugh at that, and something in my chest loosens. Right now he doesn’t look like Sin the traitor. Or even Sin the charmer. He just looks like Sin. Maybe that’s why I take pity on him and say, “I think art can always have different interpretations. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that.”

“But what if your interpretation was wrong?”

“It wasn’t,” I murmur. “It was a different perspective. As a Truthseer, I’ve come to realize truths are just opinions disguised as facts. A truth is simply a personal belief, and there is no one meaning for anything on this Earth. Even paintings.”

He glances over his shoulder at me. “You realize we’re not actually discussing art, right?”

“Yes, Sin. I’m aware.” I slide my legs into my chest, and he takes that as invitation to collapse horizontally at my feet. He splays out on the bed and sighs again.

“I met Cora on the beach when I was a child.” My entire body stills at that, and I stare at him, torn between wanting to hear what comes next and recoiling from it. “She was nice. I know that sounds impossible, but she found me after a particularly difficult day, and I was a snotty, sobbing mess. She just held me in her arms until I stopped, and then she told me what I already knew in my bones: She was my mother. She had my nose, my smile, and she said my father had my chin and eyes.”

Something like dread settles in my chest at his expression—wistful but darker, twisted with bitterness.

He shakes his head. “I remember so much about that night. Sneaking out of the castle, the sand getting caught in my slippers, the softness of her voice and the truth in her gray gaze… She hugged me, and I could feel it. I was so convinced…” He glares at the ceiling with a self-deprecating laugh. “I keep replaying the night in my head. Over and over. I keep looking for signs that I was right.”

“She’s your mother.” I swallow hard, forcing down the lump in my throat. “You were right about that.”

“Yes. No.” His lip curls. “I don’t know, Vanessa. I wasn’t only convinced that she was my flesh and blood. I was convinced that she loved me—that she wasn’t just a woman who gave birth, but she was my mother. Warm and caring and everything I’d never gotten from Sybil. I had this emptiness in my chest from my father’s—my uncle’s—death, and Cora was the first person who came close to filling that void. She was an adult, and she cared for me, and she said she would protect me and Calix. She said she could help save the entire castle. I only had to trust her. So I did.” Another laugh. This one quieter and altogether more devastating. Tears well in his eyes, and a few trickle down his temples. He makes no move to wipe them away, and I don’t blame him.

Sometimes you have to sit in your sadness and your mistakes. Sometimes there’s nothing else to be done but feel your pain and wait for it to subside.

“She hugged me,” he says softly, “and I was ready to throw everything away because of it. All those people died because of me.” His jaw clenches as he blinks slowly, and fresh tears drip to the blanket. “I think of their names too. I repeat them at night. I don’t want to forget any of them. I don’t want to hide from what I’ve done or try to bury it. I fucked up. I know that. But I thought… in some stupid, boyish way… I thought I was helping.”

I follow the path of his tears, feeling sick.

I can picture it now. He was so young, impressionable, and broken, and Cora swooped in like a knight from a fairy tale. Little Sinclair with blood on his hands and a shattered home stumbled upon the future he always wanted. A better world. A better family. He just wanted to be loved. And understanding that doesn’t fix anything, but it helps. Because if Celeste walked up to me right now and told me she could live again if I burned the entire city—I would probably do it. And if I wouldn’t, then I’d come very close.

Sin is as much a victim as he is a villain.