Montgomery Beauregard came to ask his blind Nana a question that could ruin him. He wanted to marry the heiress. Her family had forbidden the match, and no one would tell him why. If he guessed wrong and insulted them, they would turn him away for good. So he brought the one person who knew every old family in the mire. He pushed open the door of the sagging mansion where he had grown up. The swamp pressed close outside, wet and green. Inside, dust coated the grand staircase. His cane tapped the warped floorboards as he crossed to her. Magnolia sat in her wheelchair by the cold window. Her white hair was swept up the way she had worn it for sixty years. Her gnarled fingers rested in her lap. Her eyes, hazy and blind, turned toward his footsteps before he spoke. "You walk heavier when you're afraid," she said. "Sit down, Monty." He removed his top hat and knelt beside her chair. "I need the truth, Nana. Her people forbid me. I don't know what I've done." Magnolia was quiet a long moment. Her jaw tightened. "You've done nothing," she said. "But your grandfather did." Montgomery leaned closer. "Grandfather?" "Her family and ours share a border," she said. "Long ago there was a marriage promised between our houses. Your grandfather broke it. He chose me instead. Her people never forgave the shame of being cast aside." Montgomery's hands went cold. "So the quarrel is old. It has nothing to do with me." "It has everything to do with your name," she said. "Go to them proud, and they hear your grandfather's arrogance. Go to them begging, and they crush you." She gripped his sleeve. "You must go with an apology no Beauregard has ever offered. Admit the wrong. Ask nothing in return." Montgomery sat back on his heels. He had come dreading some crime of his own. Instead he carried a debt eighty years old. "They'll expect me to defend the family," he said slowly. "If I bow instead, they may soften." "Or they may spit on you," Magnolia said. "But now you know the wound. Before, you were blind. Now only I am." A thin smile crossed her lips. Montgomery kissed her wrinkled hand. He had his answer. He knew the reason at last, and the shape of the risk ahead. He stood and set his hat back on his head. The floor creaked under his boots. "Then I'll go and apologize for a man I never met," he said. "And pray the heiress is worth my pride." "She is," Magnolia said, "if she's anything like the woman your grandfather chose." Montgomery walked out into the wet dark. He had crossed the first wall. But a harder one waited: to face her family's door and offer the one thing his blood had never given them.

Montgomery meant to ride straight to the heiress's family and beg their pardon. But first he came here, to the sagging house where the swamp glowed at dusk. Fireflies drifted over the porch rail. He had one letter left unburned in his coat, and one man he had to face before he could face anyone else. Phineas Ashdown-Grey waited in the shadow of the porch. Montgomery knew him from boarding school, where they had shared a room and, later, far more than that. Phineas had the same fair hair, the same striking blue eyes. He was the heiress's brother. He was also the true owner of Montgomery's heart, and no one alive knew it. "You didn't send word," Phineas said. He kept his voice low. His eyes moved to the dark windows. "Does your grandmother know I'm here?" "No one knows," Montgomery said. He drew the bundle from his coat. Twine held the old letters tight. The top page showed Phineas's flowing hand. "You wrote these to me. If your family finds them, they'll ruin us both. I came to give them back." Phineas stared at the bundle. He did not take it. "You'd hand me proof and walk away? To marry my sister?" "To win her hand," Montgomery said. "It's the only way I keep my name. You know what I've lost." "I know what you're throwing off," Phineas said. His confidence cracked for a moment. "Which is me." Montgomery's grip tightened on the twine. He had rehearsed this on the road. Every word had felt right until now, with the fireflies lighting Phineas's face. "I can't tell my grandmother the truth," Montgomery said. "I can't tell your family. There's no door for us that doesn't end with both houses burning us out." He pressed the letters into Phineas's hands. "Take them. Marry your sister off to some safer man. Forget this." Phineas held the bundle. His jaw worked. Then he turned it over and pulled the twine loose. He drew out the topmost letter and held it to the firefly glow. "You keep this one," he said. He pushed the single page back at Montgomery's chest. "Burn the rest yourself, if you can. I won't do it for you." Montgomery took the page. His hand shook. "Phineas—" "You made your choice." Phineas stepped back off the porch. The rest of the letters stayed in his fist. "But I'm keeping mine. When you stand at my family's door and beg, I'll be standing behind them." He walked into the wet dark before Montgomery could answer. Montgomery stood alone with one love letter in his hand. He had come to end it cleanly. Instead he had made an enemy of the one person who could destroy him with a word. Now he had to face the heiress's family door knowing her brother waited on the other side, holding proof of everything.