In his study, Adrian was feeling strangely suffocated. It was probably due to Rosamond, who had refused to stay in the cottage by the tower, though it was, oddly enough, leased under her name. She had also refused Adrian’s offer to find her a charity room in the local church. In fact, she refused to do anything but lounge on the settee in his study, sighing often from boredom and generally distracting him.

In other words, Rance had been replaced by an exceedingly lovely female counterpart.

Adrian had tried to explain to her about her reputation, but she had disregarded him with a lofty wave of her hand. It occurred to him that having, in all practical terms, come back to life after a hundred years, Rosamond did not have a reputation to ruin—she scarcely existed at all. It was his reputation that would suffer if word of her residence at his house starting spreading. He too scarcely existed in local society, but the little that anyone knew about him was that he was a respectable gentleman. Rosamond did not seem to care about that either.

“Where were you today?” she asked, with a pouting look that Adrian had learned to resent, since it was inevitably augmented by her moving to perch on the edge of the desk and lean disturbingly close. This time proved no exception.

“Catherine’s funeral. I told you that,” he said, leaning back in his chair to be free from her unsettling pale blue gaze and, what was more, the delicious warm scent that seemed to always radiate from her.

“But I was horribly bored,” she said, frowning as he moved away. “Who is she anyway?”

“I told you that too. She was the one who guarded you as you slept.”

“Her? Well, thank the stars she’s dead.”

“Don’t say that.” Adrian stared at her, feeling a lick of fire rouse under his temper. “You didn’t even know her.”

“Of course I knew her, silly.” Rosamond mistook the intention of his stare as something else entirely and batted her eyelashes at him. “That grey old hag at that wretched spinning wheel. I’ve dreamt of that hideous face for years.”

“That’s not her.” Adrian shook his head numbly. He hated that hag as much as Rosamond did. Maybe more. She had started all this over a wounded ego, and Catherine would be alive today, if…but he couldn’t even imagine it. “Her name is—was Catherine Carver. She found a way to save you at the curse’s end.”

“So she brought you to me?” Rosamond’s smile was somehow demure and predatory at the same time. Her hair fell across her shoulder in a rippling gold stream as she leaned in slightly—just near enough that Adrian found himself trapped in that piercing stare again, unable to break away.

He nodded weakly, knowing where this was going and wishing—albeit vaguely—that there was a way to stop it.

“What a dear,” Rosamond said absently, twisting a strand of gold between two slender fingers. “I shall have to meet her some day.”

“She’s dead.”

“Oh, right. You mentioned that, didn’t you?” She tried on a pitying smile, but it did not suit her mood. She switched to coy and took his hand in hers. “Well, let the dead bury their dead.”

With those words, her spell was broken. Adrian yanked his hand away and stood up so quickly that his chair spun away and clattered onto its side.

“She died for you!” he cried. “And I don’t know if it makes it better or worse that she didn’t want to, but it certainly doesn’t make it all right.”

“So what?” Rosamond stood as well, drawing herself to her full height, which was almost even with his. “Do you think that uptight, stubby-armed pig could have ever lived a life worth anything?”

Adrian was taken aback by her confident and challenging tone.

“You did know her, didn’t you.”

“Of course I didn’t know her. But I was linked to her just like that old cow before her and the wretched hag before her. I dreamed of her often, saw the things that she saw, felt the things that she felt. All her despair and self-hatred and high hopes for the future.” Rosamond sniggered, turning her pretty features foul. “Would you believe that she actually thought she had a chance with you?”

Adrian just stared, aghast and lost for words.

“It was pitiful actually,” she continued. “And downright disgusting. I was trapped in that tower, and she was daydreaming about running away with my prince.”

“I’m not your prince,” Adrian said, catching his breath. He rounded the desk and headed for the door. “I’ve told you—”

“Don’t be silly.” She stepped in front of him, deliberately close. “I’m the princess, and you saved me. It’s the way the story ends.”

Adrian could feel the fragrant heat of her body merging with his own. Her lips were full and pouting and glistening. For a moment, just a moment, he felt the urge to pull her in and kiss her. Maybe that was the way the story ended…

But then his mind caught up with the rest of him, and he stepped backwards.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to find a different ending, Miss Rosamond,” he said, matching her relentless glare. “I will call the coach for you. There is a local church down the road that will gladly take you in, or I’ll tell the driver to take you to your cottage. Either way, this is where our acquaintance ends.”

Rosamond let out a small shriek of rage and slapped him.

“How dare you?” she cried. “I’m a princess, and I’m offering you myself.”

“A ‘thank you’ will suffice,” Adrian said coldly, pulling open the study door.

She shrieked again, and all the beauty of her face was overcome by wrath.

“You would have married her, then? That prim and proper cow? Is that it?”

Adrian closed his eyes, policing his short, angry breaths.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” he said finally. His voice was dangerously soft. “But I do know that I would choose her over you every time.”

She slapped him again, but Adrian did not budge. The stairwell echoed with her fury, the front door slammed, and Rosamond was gone.

Adrian whirled around and paced in front of his desk for a few seconds, battling with the slough of emotions in his chest. The open book on his desk caught his eye, and he stopped to stare at it. He was halfway finished recording this most recent sequence of numbers, but had stopped at the ending. How could he ever capture Catherine’s death in simple numbers? And even if he could, would he want to? It seemed so wrong.

All at once, everything seemed wrong to him. In a fit of passion, he snatched up the book and hurled it at the wall. He swiped an arm across his desk, knocking all the tools of his peculiar profession to the floor. He snatched up the fire poker and began stoking the embers in the fireplace, drawing strength as the flames drew oxygen and leapt to life.

He took up the book, and for one wild moment he felt perfectly free to throw it to the flames. For a brief, beguiling moment, the passion in his chest called forth the hope that had been buried for so long. Maybe tonight could be the night. Maybe tonight he could start his life anew, apart from the wretched Grimmoire.

But the passion died as the flames grew hotter, and he felt gripped by familiar helplessness. With a heavy heart, he began to replace the items on his desk, one by one. Wasn’t he here every night—wishing to be rid of the accursed book, but never having the strength to feed it to the fire, never having the strength to be free of it forever?

Why should tonight be any different?

Rance poked his head cautiously around the study door. Adrian was facing the fireplace, hands clasped behind his back. The red flames were the only light in the room, and the walls danced with shadows.

“She’s gone then?” Rance asked hopefully, peering around the study.

“Several hours ago,” Adrian replied distantly.

“Well, thank goodness. She was a real piece of work, eh?” Rance slipped into the room and stood, waiting for Adrian to turn around.

Adrian still stared at the fire, not seeming to register that his friend, who had earlier gone to pursue the woman he loved, had returned. Rance shifted impatiently from one foot to the other, practically bursting with the glorious news, but Adrian was lost in a different world.

At length, Rance realized that Adrian was dealing with something intense and private. He decided to wait to share the news. There would be plenty of time for champagne and celebration at a later date.

“Here,” he said, fumbling with a torn sheet of paper folded in his greatcoat. “I forgot to give this to you earlier. I know you didn’t want to see any of the papers they gathered from Catherine’s home, but I thought you needed to see this one.”

Adrian didn’t say anything, so Rance put it on the neatly organized desk. He lingered a few more seconds, but it was increasingly obvious that Adrian would not soon be coming back from wherever in his mind he had gone. Rance waved uselessly in farewell and left. The door clicked shut behind him.

Adrian swallowed hard, determined not to look at the paper Rance had left. But soon the fire grew unbearably hot on his face, and he had to turn away. The wrinkled paper, many times folded and unfolded, rested innocuously on the desk. Biting his lip, Adrian reached out and took it.

He scanned it quickly, as if too long a look would turn him to stone. What stood out the most was a hastily scrawled paragraph at the bottom, not in Catherine’s handwriting.

Found something unsettling today. Fear that the guardian can only live while the curse does. When Rosamond awakes, will it all be over? Can’t tell Catherine. She is too young.

Adrian felt a wave of nausea and crumpled the page in his fist. He had suspected it was something like that. As far as they could tell, Catherine had fallen dead at the exact moment he kissed Rosamond awake. If he had only known…

But he hadn’t, and neither had Catherine. And now it was all over.

Hopelessness and guilt threatened to overtake him, but he flung them aside determinedly and flung the paper into the fire. It was over, all of it, and there was nothing to do but move forward.

Despite the phantom emptiness he felt in his chest, he would move forward. Hope swelled, igniting his whole being with a freedom that was glorious and overwhelming.

Adrian basked in the warmth of the crackling flames for a few more minutes, and then he left the study and went downstairs to fetch his greatcoat. He needed to find Rance and Cynthia and buy them both a celebratory drink. The outside world of lights and laughter beckoned temptingly, and Adrian was truly ready to give in and start his life anew.

Behind him, the top left drawer of his desk lay open and empty. Finally empty.

The fire burned through the night.