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The longing for her father crashed over her with renewed force, dragging fresh tears from eyes she had thought already emptied. Papa would have known what to do. Papa would have held her, stroked her hair, and told her that the opinions of others did not matter, that she was lovely to him, that they could lead a wonderful life here at Grimsfell, far away from critical eyes.

But Papa was gone. Papa had left her alone to guard secrets she did not understand, to manage an estate she had never been prepared to inherit, to navigate a world that found her very existence offensive. Papa had promised her that everything would be all right, and then he had died in his sleep, and nothing had been all right since.

Why did you leave me?

The question emerged as a keening cry, muffled by the sodden pillow.

Why did you not prepare me for this? Why did you let me believe I could hide forever?

But there was no answer. There never was. Papa was beyond hearing, beyond helping, beyond anything but the cold silence of the grave.

Isolde wept until her throat was raw, until her eyes burned, until her chest ached with the effort of breathing. She wept until there were no tears left, until she was hollowed out and empty, a husk of the woman who had laughed in Angelo’s arms.

I wish prayers worked.

She had tried, in the early years. After the vicar’s wife had crossed herself and hissed about the devil’s mark, Isolde had spent countless nights on her knees, begging God to take the stains away. She had bargained and pleaded, promised to be good, so good, if only He would make her normal. She had recited every prayer she knew, had invented new ones when the old ones failed, had worn the skin of her knees raw against the cold stone floor of her bedchamber.

But her prayers had gone unanswered. The marks remained, spreading across her face like a map of her unworthiness, and eventually, she had stopped asking. What was the point of petitioning a God who had clearly marked her for suffering? What mercy could she expect from a Creator who had made her thus?

This is apparently my test, she thought bitterly, staring up at the canopy of her bed with eyes that felt like sand. And I have failed.

She had failed by hoping. By believing, even for a moment, that she might be worthy of love. By allowing a handsome Italian with kind eyes and gentle hands to convince her that she was beautiful, that she was a treasure, that she undid him completely.

Lies. All of it, lies.

Or perhaps not lies, precisely. Perhaps Angelo had believed what he said in the moment. Perhaps his attraction to her had been genuine, a curiosity, a fascination with the exotic phantom who appeared from shadows and vanished into walls. But fascination was not love. And whatever tender feelings he might harbor could not survive the fundamental truth of her condition.

She was marked. Damaged. Unacceptable as she was. Unable to accompany him in the light of day.

And Angelo, for all his pretty words, knew it. Why else would he have offered to help her hide? Why else would he have spoken of creams and tinctures, of smoothing and mattifying, of making her presentable for polite company? He had looked upon her face and seen a problem to be solved, a flaw to be corrected, a patient to be treated.

Not a woman to be loved.

The tears had stopped, leaving her face stiff and swollen, her pillow damp beneath her cheek. Isolde lay motionless in the moonlight, staring at nothing, feeling nothing. The storm of grief had passed, leaving behind a vast and terrible emptiness.

She should have known better. She had known better. Every instinct she possessed had warned her against letting Angelo close, against stepping out of the shadows, against believing that she might find happiness in the arms of a man who would inevitably see her as she truly was.

But she had ignored those instincts. She had let hope creep in through the cracks in her armor, had allowed herself to imagine a future that could never exist. And now she was paying the price.

Never again.

The vow formed in the silence of her heart, cold and absolute. She would not make this mistake again. She would not allow another person to catch a glimpse of the phantom, to touch the vulnerable core she had spent years protecting. She would retreat into her shadows, her secrets, her solitude, and she would stay there until the loneliness killed her or the years wore her away to nothing.

It was safer that way. Safer to be alone than to risk this devastating, eviscerating pain.

From somewhere far below, she heard a voice calling her name. Angelo, still searching the gardens, still crying out for her in the darkness. The sound should have moved her. Once, mere hours ago, it would have drawn her back to him like a moth to flame.

Now it only hardened her resolve.

Go away.

She buried her face deeper into the pillow.

Go back to your friends, your family, your world of light and laughter. There is nothing for you here. There never was.

The voice faded eventually, swallowed by the wind that sang its eternal lament over the cliffs. And Isolde lay alone in her tower, as she had always been alone, as she would always be alone, until the marks on her face crumbled to dust along with the rest of her.

She did not sleep that night. She simply lay there, hollow and aching, watching the moon traverse its silver arc across her windows and waiting for the dawn that would bring nothing but another day of hiding.