Sairis's POV
Sairis sat very still in the chair.
He had known there was a possibility it was a trap. He had told himself that on the carriage ride. He had held the possibility clearly in his mind and looked at it honestly and decided to come anyway because the other possibility, the one where Starr was actually alive, had been stronger than his fear.
He had been wrong.
She was still dead.
His sister was still dead and had been dead for years and Greta had reached into that grief and used it like a tool and he had walked straight into it because he was a man who had lost everyone and Greta had known exactly what a man like that could not walk away from.
He swallowed.
The grief was not new. He had carried it for years. But having it confirmed again in this bare cold room by the woman who had caused it in the first place was a different kind of pain from the original. Sharper. More focused. Like pressing on a wound that had almost healed.
