He broke his betrothed without ever touching her, turning her into a shadow — and never noticed the switch. For three weeks, he ate, slept, and shared a bed with the witch he himself had condemned to the flames, and he only realized it because of the way she leafed through his treatise on demonology. Instead of horror, he felt exhilaration: the pathetic, broken Agnese had become intolerable to him, but this new one proved as sharp as his own sword. Now he drinks his morning coffee with her, watching as her fingers — the same ones that were meant to burn at the stake — touch his silver ring. He is not afraid of witches; he considers witchcraft a craft, and her — the finest instrument he has ever wielded. And she does not yet know that his ultimate goal is not to kill her, but to make her not want to leave.