He felt his world start to slide away. She wasn't going to accept his proposition. This wasn't going to work.

There were only two choices in front of him, and both were impossible.

He couldn't say that he believed her, because she would hear the lie in his voice.

If he said he didn't believe her, they started the whole cycle over again.

He was trapped, here, in his darkest place. Trapped by the witch to live forever in the role of the Nightkind King. Never connecting with his princess, never winning the love of his life. There would be no transformative magic, no new day.

Looking at her, he did the only thing he could. He told her the truth.

"Is forgiveness such a bad thing?" he whispered. "I love you enough to forgive you anything."

Her expression was almost indescribable. Tender and exasperated, and with a deep, underlying well of concern.

Then she did a foolish thing.

The most completely unexpected thing.

She took his face in both hands and kissed him. Her lips were so soft, the caress so generous, it made everything clean and new again. It couldn't be the last kiss, the final touch he would ever receive from her, or he would lie down and die. When she pulled away, he snatched her out of the chair and held on to her.

"It's a hell of a thing to know, isn't it?" she said. "That somebody loves you enough to forgive you for anything. I have to tell you, soldier right now it's a good thing I love you enough to forgive you anything too. So, yay for us, right?"

The same complexity that made her expression unreadable layered her voice. He muttered, "I don't understand."

"I don't either, but maybe we can finally get to the bottom of this." She hugged him, then pushed out of his arms and rose to her feet. He stood with her. "Something or someone has such a hold over you that you can't hear me when I say I didn't cheat." She faced him, hands on her hips. "I want to know who did this to us, and why. Tell me what happened."

He considered her with a frown. She clearly wasn't hurling accusations, or trying to start a fight. She looked like she was ready to go into battle, but while her words were determined her voice remained calm.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he turned away. "I don't know who did it. The why seems pretty obvious a lot of people weren't happy that you and I were seeing each other. One day I received a packet of photographs." He looked over his shoulder at her. "They were of you having sex with Ferion."

She looked like he had slapped her. "Somebody sent you photographs of me and Ferion? Ferion, the new Elven Lord?"

He lifted a hand and let it fall, looking away.

She strode around to stand in front of him, planting her hands on her hips. "The photos were a lie. I have never been, nor have I ever wanted to be, with Ferion."

She looked so furious and determined.

And every word she said felt like the Gospel truth.

It threw him into chaos. Once he had thought she wouldn't tell him the truth. Then he thought she couldn't, but this was something else entirely. At this point, she had no stake in maintaining any lie, and his gut kept insisting that he believe her.

But...

"I couldn't accept what I was looking at, so I had the photos examined." He rubbed his face and looked at her over his hand. "Melly, the images weren't manipulated. They were real."

He tried to say it in as neutral a tone as possible, but her eyes dilated in quick reaction. She hissed, "No, they weren't."

As he stared at her, the feeling in his gut worsened. Of all the ways he might have imagined this conversation going, this wasn't it.

"Once I verified the photos hadn't been doctored, I had to know when and how it could have happened. Remember when you were on location for that movie in Singapore? You told me you were too busy to take a break." He paused. He had to. Her distress was so palpable, he found himself reluctant to add to it. He added more softly, "But after a little research, I discovered you had gone to New York."

Her mouth tightened as her gaze turned inward and searching, looking back in time.

She said abruptly, "Yes, that's right. I did go for a quick visit. It was the only break I took, which is why I told you I didn't have any time. Bailey bought tickets to a Broadway show that she knew I'd been wanting to see. She insisted, and I felt like I couldn't say no. I'd been spending all my free time with you and I hadn't seen her in ages, so I got on a plane, flew in, saw the show with her and left again." Her voice shook. "What did you do with the photos?"

"I burned them," he said between his teeth. "Then I ground the ashes to dust. And I tried my damnedest to hunt down the motherfucker who had sent them to me, so I could break his face and fingers. Because clearly somebody was trying to start some shit so I was going to give them shit."

Her eyes widened. "Did you find who sent them?"

"No. But I broke my fist on Ferion's face the next time I saw him, so there's that." He needed a minute, so he strode into his walk-in closet to pull on a pair of faded jeans.

When he walked back out, Melly was sitting in the armchair again, her arms wrapped around her middle. She looked shaken and a little ill. Quickly, he crossed the room to her. "What is it?"

She shook her head. Just when he thought she wasn't going to respond any more than that, she whispered, "The photos were real?"

As he gazed down at her, the bad feeling in his gut solidified into certainty. Before, he had followed the evidence until it had broken him down. Now, despite all the evidence to the contrary, he knew she was telling the truth.

He didn't know how any of it had happened, but he knew one thing.

She had always been telling the truth.

"I believe you," he breathed. "I don't know how any of it happened, but I believe you."

Her reddened gaze lifted to his. There was so much grief in her expression, he knelt in front of her. She put her arms around his neck. He scooped her out of the chair and sat with her on his lap, and she hid her face in him.

Could she have been drugged or coerced? His mind ran through a series of possibilities, each one more extreme than the last. His arms clamped around her while his emotions raged out of control.

"Melly, I'm so sorry," he said from the back of his throat.

She pushed upright to look into his eyes. She looked fierce and determined. "You forgave me, and I forgave you. We're drawing a line and moving on, remember?"

His jaw clenched. He couldn't have felt more cut up if Justine had taken her knife to his insides. "But I forgave you for something you didn't do."

"You didn't know that, which makes it all the more precious to me. You genuinely forgave me. In fact, it sounds to me like you tried everything you could do to prove it wasn't true." She scrubbed her face with the back of one hand, her mouth turned down in an unhappy bow. "Tell me what the woman in the photos looked like."

He didn't want to go there, but her words took him back to the moment he pulled them out of the manila envelope. The images were burned into his mind. Reluctantly, he said, "She looked like you."

Her chin shook. "How long was her hair?"

"It was the length of your hair. It fell down her back, just like..." His eyes narrowed suddenly. "Why would you ask that?"

She laid a hand against his cheek. "Because I'm about to accuse my sister of doing something, and I don't know if I can forgive her for it."

"Oh, fuck me," he growled. As much as he had obsessed over what had happened, he had never considered that. "Everything pointed to you."

"I know." Her eyes reddened again. "Someone put effort into making that happen, didn't they?"

Quiet footsteps sounded outside in the hall. Gregoire said telepathically, Sir, I'm very sorry to bother you.

Turning his head toward the door, he asked, What is it?

First sentinel Graydon is here. Should I tell him that you and Miss Melisande are unavailable?

While he was tempted to say yes, Graydon had done a great deal for them in the last two days. Julian pressed a kiss to Melly's forehead and told her, "Graydon's downstairs. I need to have a word with him. Would you like to come, or should I go down by myself?"

Her expression changed. "I'll absolutely come down too. I need to thank him in person for everything he did."

"Okay." Switching to telepathy, he said to Gregoire, Please tell him we'll be down in ten minutes.

Very good, sir. I've placed a few clothes for Miss Melisande in front of the door, along with a replacement phone for you.

Thank you.

As his attendant's quiet footsteps receded, he and Melly looked at each other. Her loose braid had slipped out a little, and gentle curls framed her face. He brushed one back, marveling at the softness of her hair.

"I think it was worth getting kidnapped," she told him.

He raised his eyebrows. "Really? In spite of everything? The fear, the danger, and if what you believe is true, finding out about your sister?"

"Well, I'm not going to deny it, some of it really hurts right now. I need to hear the truth directly from Bailey, and I need to find out if my mom was involved in any of it. But in the end, it's so much better to know the truth about something rather than living a lie." She tilted her head. "And then there's you and me."

You and me. Not that long ago, he never would have conceived of saying those words.

"You better be sure about this," he said. "Because I'm not going to let you go again. I'm never going to doubt you. I may not know anything else about what's going to happen, but I know that much is true."

A slow, sweet smile broke over her face. It turned a touch wry, which was purely Melly. "You can hold on to me as tight as you need, because I'll be holding on to you just as tightly. I'm okay with the future being an uncertain place. We'll figure things out. Answers to questions always come with time. But I know one thing, and I have to tell you right now I am not going to live in Evenfall. I considered it for a while before, but that ship has sailed, soldier. There is too much drama that comes out of that zip code."

A ghost of a laugh shook through him. "Don't I know it."

He pulled her close for a deep kiss. It quickly turned urgent. He fell into the dark intimacy of her mouth while she grasped the back of his neck and arched to get closer.

As her breath shuddered against his lips, he forced himself to pull back. "It's okay," he murmured. "We have time now. We're going to get all the time we didn't get before, and then some. And we will, by God, carve a niche for ourselves out of the universe somehow. I'll fight the world to see that it happens, and damn anybody who tries to get in our way."

She let out a deep sigh, and the tight grasp at the back of his head eased. "I'll be fighting right by your side," she whispered. She slipped her legs out of his lap and stood. "I need to freshen up before I go down."

He rose to his feet. "Want me to wait for you?"

"No, that's okay. I don't want to keep Graydon waiting any longer than necessary. You go ahead. I'll be right there."

"All right."

While she went into the bathroom, he opened the door to the hall. A Saks bag waited on the floor, along with a smartphone. He tucked the phone into his pocket, took the clothes in to her, then went to slip on a T-shirt, socks and boots and headed downstairs.

Gregoire had shown Graydon into the library, a large, comfortable room that faced the north of the house. As Julian strode in, he glanced out the open windows at the sunny day. While he might have to contend with sunshine, so did Justine, along with any other Vampyre.

He wondered where she was sheltering for the day. The citywide search would have begun by now, but San Francisco was a massive place and it would take time. Too much time.

The city was also bordered by water. If she grew desperate, all she needed to do was slip into the Bay and swim away. She would have the strength and the stamina to reach the East Bay, or even Marin County, to the north, or further down the coast. She had no need to breathe, so she could stay underwater and undetected for miles.

The trick would be emerging from the water, but she could do it, if she had managed to acquire more sun-protective clothing and knew where to take shelter.

Graydon stood near one of the windows, looking out at the grounds, his tall, burly figure outlined against a backdrop of the green tended lawn and colorful flowerbeds. He turned as Julian entered the room.

The sentinel was dressed much as Julian was in tough, practical clothes, in a T-shirt, jeans and boots. He wore a gun in a shoulder holster, and a battered jean jacket lay tossed over the arm of a nearby chair.

Julian strode over to shake his hand. "Thanks for stopping by."

"Julian, I'm glad to see you're all right," Graydon said. "I got worried there for a little while, when I lost your trail at the museum."

"Melly is on her way down she wants to thank you too for everything that you've done."

"It's my pleasure. I was glad to help." Graydon paused. "I'm about to head back to New York, but first I wanted to ask you something."

"What's that?"

"At the museum, your scent stopped on the sidewalk right at the place where there was a distinctive magical residue." The other man's keen, gray gaze studied his expression. "It was Djinn magic, wasn't it?"

"Yes," he said. "It was, and that particular Djinn is a nasty, malicious fucker."

"Was it someone named Malphas?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, it was." Julian raised his eyebrows. "How did you know?"

Graydon turned away, looking out the window again. "Malphas and I go way back," he said grimly. "I recognized his magical footprint."

Julian paused as he took that in. He'd had no idea that individual Djinn could be detected by their magical footprints, or that Graydon had the ability to track at such a sophisticated level. It was never a good idea to underestimate the abilities of one of the Wyr sentinels.

"If you've had dealings with Malphas before, you have my sympathies," Julian said. He walked over to a liquor cabinet and poured himself a glass of bloodwine. "I suppose it's too early to offer you a glass of scotch."

"Hell, no. I haven't been to bed. Man, it's late for me."

With a chuckle, he splashed some scotch into a tumbler and walked it over to the other man. "I don't know how much you know of what happened."

"Tatiana filled me in on the bare bones." Nodding his thanks, he sipped his scotch.

"So you know that Justine kidnapped Melly."

"Yeah. That's fucked up."

"Malphas agreed to help Justine without an exchange of favors. He transported me to where she was holding Melly captive. He did it to retaliate for some things that have happened here recently." Julian tossed back his bloodwine. "We forced him into a bargain with Soren as a witness, and I don't think he took too kindly to it."

"But Malphas is a pariah," Graydon said slowly. "How do you know he'll honor that?"

Julian's eyes narrowed. Graydon seemed to be listening intently for his reply. Something about Julian's answer mattered a great deal to the other man.

"He'll keep this bargain. Malphas believes that Soren is in possession of information that could be damaging to his interests. Xavier has a new attendant who used to work for Malphas. Tess gave Soren a sealed envelope. If anything happens to her, or to anyone in the Nightkind demesne for sheltering her, Soren opens the envelope and distributes the contents to all the gaming commissions in the world."