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each generation, the gifts grow less potent.”
    My stomach churned. Our descendants, not their . Then again, Henry always grouped them together as if they were one single entity instead of six individual beings. “Do you—have kids?” I said timidly.
    It was humiliating, realizing that I knew so little about him. After studying long and hard last year, I knew what the myths had taught me and what he himself had told me, but myths weren’t always accurate, and Henry had been less than forthcoming about himself. Calliope had once told me it was widely believed Henry had never slept with anyone before me, not even Persephone, but Calliope had turned out to be less than reliable.
    “No, I do not,” said Henry, and I nearly choked sucking back my sigh of relief.
    “Do you—” I stopped, but Henry nodded encouragingly. “Do you want to someday? A few decades or centuries from now?”
    He gave me a wan smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “We will see how you feel then. I do not wish to saddle you with another responsibility you did not ask for. Now come, we must get you ready.”
    I frowned. What was that supposed to mean? Did he think I didn’t want this, to be married to him and everything that came along with it?
    James’s words floated back to me. This was the choice he’d been talking about, wasn’t it? He knew Henry was having doubts. He knew Henry thought he was a burden to me, or that I was going to pull a Persephone and leave him. Worse, James had tried to talk me into it.
    “You know I want this, right?” I said. “No matter what anyone else has said—”
    “No one else has said a word about this to me,” said Henry. “Even your mother has respected my boundaries. For once,” he added under his breath. “But this is the beginning of our rule together. We do not need to make these decisions right away.”
    Our rule together, not our life together. Another distinction, but this time it wasn’t a slip of the tongue. My throat tightened. “Not when you think I might back out of it anyway, right?”
    He hesitated. “I am not your captor. If you wish to leave, you may.”
    “No, you’re not my captor. You’re supposed to be my husband,” I snapped. “Do you want me to leave? Do you want to rule alone or—or fade or whatever will happen to you if I go?”
    I wanted him to yell at me. I wanted him to be livid. I wanted to make him feel the overpowering emotions he triggered in me when he was like this, when I was so desperate for the approval he refused to give me that I was practically tearing my hair out.
    Instead he watched me with a maddeningly calm gaze and said evenly, “I would like for you to give us both some time to adjust to this. It is a new life for us both, and I wish to grow into it together rather than war. There is no need to rush. We have eternity.”
    It was rational. That was the worst part about it; I had nothing to bark at him about. He was being the mature one, giving us both space to adjust to this, and I was being the one who clung to him because even though I trusted him with my life, I didn’t trust him enough to love me the way I wanted him to. And in that moment, part of me hated him for it.
    “Just tell me if you want me to be here or not,” I whispered. “Please.”
    He lowered his head, as if he wanted to kiss me, but he pulled away at the last second. “What I want should never dictate what you do. I want you to be happy, and so long as you are content, I will be, as well.”
    That wasn’t an answer and he knew it, but I deflated and followed Henry into the bedroom, where he put on his shirt. I didn’t want to fight, either. I knew things weren’t going to be perfect, and maybe it was James’s fault for making me doubt Henry to begin with, or maybe it was the reminders of Persephone everywhere I looked, but all I wanted was a little reassurance. A touch. A kiss. A word. Anything.
    I brushed my fingers against the jeweled flower in my pocket. That would