twenty-five

Poppy

Alexei's note came a few hours after dinner.

Your brother's debt is paid in full.

You are free to stay or go, as you please.

The choice is yours.

-Alexei

Wilder brought it to her, and stayed to wait for an answer.

"I…am free to go?" Poppy murmured.

"Or stay," Wilder said, pointedly.

She could stay here, where she did not belong, or go home, where she was not wanted.

The choice, as Alexei's note said, was hers.

"Look at that," Poppy said, "a choice. I've never had one of those before."

Wilder smiled in the periphery of her vision. His dark face wore an expression of such kindness that her heart nearly melted.

"I do not know what to do with it," Poppy said.

"That is the thing about choices," Wilder replied kindly. "They are hard."

Alexei

Wilder returned to Alexei mere minutes later.

"Did you deliver my note?" Alexei asked him impatiently.

Wilder nodded.

"And?"

"She is gone, my lord," Wilder said.

"No, she's not," Alexei said stubbornly.

"I'm sorry, my lord," Wilder said.

"You're lying!"

"I'm sorry. She said goodbye to Miss Rania and to Lord Lyon."

"Wilder, stop it. I'm telling you, there is no way that she—She wouldn't leave me."

"I'm sorry, my lord."

"Wilder…"

Wilder, I'm drowning.

"I'm sorry; it's true. She's gone."

The roar that came out of Alexei's throat echoed through the halls of the Underworld, all the way upstairs to the Hell Club, through its card rooms and dancing halls, and spilled out into the dark, damp streets of London.