Nathaniel Gilbert and I were both orphans.
When old Antony Henson took us in as his apprentices, he laid down a rule.
"The Henson medical craft passes only to a man, never to a woman."
"I have one daughter. Whichever of you inherits my legacy will be her husband."
The year Hope Henson turned twenty-two, Nathaniel was poisoned during a drug trial, and it left him paralyzed down one side of his body.
And I became, as a matter of course, the Hensons' son-in-law and heir.
On our wedding day, Nathaniel slit his wrists in his sickbed.
After that, Hope and I lived as polite strangers under one roof, and I gave everything I had to the Henson name.
Year after year of it, until Henson Pharmaceuticals had grown into a publicly traded empire worth a hundred billion.
I thought we would go on like that, content, to the end of our days.
Then, in our sixtieth year, she suddenly called the police and named me a murderer.
"You poisoned Nathaniel on purpose, all those years ago, to get me, to get everything the Hensons had!"
"I never loved you. I married you because I had no choice!"
"I swallowed it for decades, and now I can finally avenge him!"
While I sat in custody, she paid off the other inmates, and they tortured me to death.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the Hensons chose their heir.
I renounced my claim without a second of hesitation.
If the one you love is someone else.
Then I'll step aside and let you have him.
……
At my words, Hope lifted her head and looked at me.
There was something hidden in her eyes I couldn't name.
Antony Henson froze, his gaze moving back and forth across my face.
"Vincent Dickerson. What did you just say?"
"Master, I said I renounce my claim."
For a moment the hall went silent.
A few of the watching uncles began to murmur among themselves, eyes flicking toward me again and again.
I knew what they were saying.
For all these years, there wasn't a soul in the Henson household who didn't know how I felt about Hope.
From the year I turned twelve, when Antony first led me through the door and I saw that little girl with her hair in two buns, I had never once managed to hide it.
For this trial, I had prepared three full months.
Up the back hill before dawn every day to gather herbs, brewing medicine at night until my fingers went black, reworking the formula for a single styptic salve through more than a dozen versions.
Everyone had watched me do it.
And now I was saying I quit.
"Nonsense."
Antony set his teacup down, his voice dropping low.
"Today we choose the heir to the Henson name, and we choose Hope's husband. A matter this large, and you treat it like a game?"
"You quit because you feel like quitting?"
I opened my mouth, looking for something to brush it off with.
That I felt unwell, that I wasn't ready, anything at all.
But with the words on my tongue, I couldn't see the point.
In my last life it took me forty years to understand that some things can't be won by trying.
"Master, I just feel..." I paused. "Nathaniel is better suited than I am."
Antony's brows knotted, and he was about to speak when Hope's voice cut in:
"Father, if Vincent doesn't want to compete, don't force him."
I raised my head and met her eyes head-on.
Her tone was even, but her eyes weren't right.
There was no surprise in them, no relief, but instead something I knew too well.
The same look she'd given me through the iron bars of that holding cell, all those years from now.
Calm. Studying. As though confirming something.
Something in me dropped.
Antony gave his daughter no chance to go on.
He rose to his feet, swept his gaze over the room, and spoke in a tone that left no room for argument:
"Rules are rules. The trial goes ahead today as planned. Who's first?"
The words were barely out when Nathaniel had already stepped forward.
