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Rainier presented himself in the Inquisitor's quarters earlier than he had said he would. He told himself it was to throw her off-guard in order to avoid admitting that it was because he was desperate to see her.

She stood in the middle of the room, near the bed, her feet bare on the soft carpet, her braid down from its pins, looking so young and so beautiful that he cursed himself for ever sullying her with the complications he carried with him even as he longed for nothing so much as to cross the endless space between them and take her in his arms. She had changed her tailored suit for a shirt and pants with a leather vest over them, and he wondered why. To look more approachable to the rank and file? That would be like her.

"You summoned me, Inquisitor?" he asked, keeping his tone deliberately insolent and stressing 'summoned' as if she had ordered him brought to her in chains. "What am I to do? Service you?" Maker, he wished that was what she wanted. He hungered for her in a way he had never wanted any other woman.

Her mouth opened as if to speak, and then she swallowed visibly and shut it again, turning her face away from him.

Rainier closed the space between them. "Do not toy with me! I am not your servant."

"I know it." Her voice was faint. She took a deep breath, turning her face back to him, her words the last ones he would have expected to hear. "I'm going to have a baby. Our baby."

He fell to his knees as though his legs had been cut out from under him. How had he never thought of that, taken steps to prevent it? She was the Inquisitor! It wasn't safe.

A baby, he thought, and then the images came to him unbidden: holding his child—his child—in his arms, a child running laughing through a field, reading to a child snuggled in his lap. In all Thom Rainier's misspent life, he had never thought about what it would be like to be a father, but it felt as though he lived a lifetime in those brief moments. Without meaning to, he raised his hands and rested them on Bridget's hips, pressing his face against her abdomen. Something he had never expected a few minutes ago had somehow become unutterably precious to him—

And for the first time in all the years he had bemoaned the consequences to him of that ill-fated raid, he understood what he had done, truly grasped what he had put Lord Callier and his wife through, and he cried out in an agony of grief and remorse, wrapping his arms around Bridget's waist to hold him up and weeping for the Calliers and their children, tears enough to match all the bitter thoughts of his own ill luck that had occupied him in the years since their death.

At some point, he became aware that Bridget was on her knees, as well, holding him, his head against her shoulder, but she didn't speak, and he couldn't. All he could do was hold on to her and cry.

At last the flow of tears stopped, and he was dimly aware of Bridget tending to him, gently putting him to bed, and he fell into the depths of an exhausted sleep.

Bridget slept very little that night, watching Thom Rainier's face in his sleep. He had wept a lifetime's worth of tears the night before, crying out in anguish. She didn't imagine that he felt that badly about her pregnancy, so she surmised the news must have awakened something else in him … but it did leave her in limbo as to what his reaction would be when he awoke.

She waited at her desk, working on a backlog of letters Josephine insisted had to be written in the Inquisitor's personal hand, while he slept on.

At last he awakened, putting a hand up to his face to hide it from her as he gathered up the few items of clothing she had helped him remove the night before. "I'm sorry, that was … It won't happen again."

"Bl—Thom. Stop." She was on her feet, but didn't dare approach him just yet. "Talk to me. Tell me what happened to you last night."

"I shouldn't have burdened you with my—"

"You are not a burden," Bridget snapped. "I love you, you stubborn idiot, and your problems are my problems. All the more now." Her hand covered her belly. "And if you dare apologize for this miracle, I'll—I'll slap you."

A faint shadow of a smile crossed his face. "Consider me warned."

"So. Talk to me."

"I don't know what to say."

"What was it that made you cry?"

"I could see—" His breath caught. "I can't. I can't talk about this." He darted out the door to the balcony, hanging on to the railing, gulping in the fresh air.

Bridget followed him, standing next to him, her hand on his shoulder. "This is me. Tell me what you were feeling."

He struggled for the words. "All these years, I thought I felt remorse for what I had done—but all I really felt was resentment for the consequences to me. I never gave a thought to the people who were harmed because of me, not really. I—I didn't know how to think of someone else above myself. Thom Rainier's fate, that was all I could think of. But I started to think about—about our child, and I realized what those poor people must have felt, powerless to help their own children."

She was nodding, lines of pain in her face, pain he had put there. "Does that make you want to die even more than you did before?"

"No. Strange, isn't it? It feels now that dying was the coward's way out—I wanted to end my own pain because part of me still thought I didn't deserve to have to feel it. But now I know that I deserve every sleepless night, every moment those screams echo in my ear." Rainier turned his head to look at Bridget. "I don't deserve you. Or …" He nodded at her abdomen.

"But it's happening, whether you deserve it or not. Things happen to us in life—things that are unfair, things that are both greater and less than we think we have earned. I never thought I would have this chance again, and now that I have it, I …" She swallowed hard, not having admitted this even to herself. "I am terrified it will be taken away."

"Again?" he asked.

Bridget nodded. She held out her locket, opening it. "The world knows this little face as my brother Malachy's son, Declan. But he is my son. Mages—mages aren't allowed to have children, and I—Malachy was willing to take the risk that he would be a mage because Deirdre can't have children. I am so fortunate that I know where he is, that he is safe and loved, and he knows me, albeit as his aunt. But I have longed for him every moment of the years since he was taken from my arms."

Rainier reached for her, holding her close. "I didn't know."

"No one does … officially."

"And his father?"

"Another mage. It was a brief fling. Declan was the only good thing that came of it." She lifted her face to his. "You are the only man I have ever truly loved. I am so grateful, so proud, to be having our baby. Can you understand that?"

"No. But I can appreciate it. And you." He touched her face, his hand gentle. "You can accept me? And what I used to be? Thom Rainier—he was never much of a man. I don't know who he is now, or who he will be."

"I accept you for what you have made of yourself, and what you will become."

He gave a great gulping sigh as if he had been holding his breath for her response. "I want you to know—I lied about who I was, but I never lied about what I felt."

She lifted a hand to touch his cheek with her fingertips. "I do know that. I never doubted it."

He took both her hands in his. "From this moment forward, I put myself, my heart, in your hands. Do what you will with it."

For answer, she lifted her mouth to his, kissing him softly. His arms came around her, holding her tight, and the kiss deepened, all the pent-up hunger of their separation fueling it. Rainier's fingers fumbled at the buttons on her shirt, cupping her breasts as the fabric parted to reveal them. Bridget moaned as he massaged and caressed them. Stripping the shirt off, she dropped it on the ground and followed it with her breastband, eager to feel his mouth where his hands were.

Rainier lifted her in his arms. He carried her inside, spreading her out on the bed and tugging her pants and smallclothes off. "Maker. You are so beautiful."

"Please." She reached for him.

"Wait. Should we—?"

"There's no danger to the baby," she assured him. "And I need you. Please." She lifted her hips.

Reassured, Rainier hurried with his own clothes before joining her on the bed, both of them groaning at the feeling of skin against skin. He kissed her again, gathering her in his arms, pulling her against him.

Bridget was on fire, desperate to have him fill her, and she reached between them, taking him in her hand and positioning him where she needed to feel him. She cried out as he began to move, wrapping her legs around his waist. The peak wasn't long in coming, and he followed her quickly, shuddering in her arms.

They lay together for a long time, not talking, holding each other close.