He simply sat and stared at the floor as the cuffs closed on him, a man watching the last of himself drain away.

Chapter 16 — The Sovereign

They led the three of them out toward a side door, and as Flynn was walked past me he stopped, and the marshals let him stop for a moment, and he turned his ruined face to me with the tears running down it.

“Mabel,” he whispered.

“Please.

Talk to them.

Ask them to give me a chance — I was sick, I wasn’t in my right mind, I loved you, I still — ”

I looked at the man who had stroked my hair while he measured poison into my glass.