She was halfway down a branching hall when a servant rounded the corner, facing her. There was plenty of room, yet he sidestepped and pressed his back into the wall as if it were a sin to take up space while she did.

  “Have you seen the prince?” she asked.

  The servant didn’t answer, not at first, as if she were addressing someone else. There was no one else, at least, not in earshot, and when he finally seemed to realize that, his gaze twitched up, stopping somewhere near her chin. Lila sighed. If there was a protocol for this, she’d never learned it.

  “Well?” she pressed.

  “Mas arna,” he said, bowing deeply again. My lady. Lila grimaced. She hated being called that, as if she were some ostra mingling at court.

  “Call me Captain,” she said.

  The servant hesitated. “Apologies,” he said. “But your rank here outweighs that title.”

  “My rank?” she ventured, assuming he meant Antari. She was wrong.

  “Your rank, as someone promised to the prince.”

  Lila stared at the servant, and felt the sudden urge to break something. The air curdled around her, and he must have sensed it, because he shrank back.

  “Tell me,” she said slowly. “What do you call Kell?”

  “Mas vares,” said the servant.

  My prince.

  “And if he were a commoner?”

  The servant ducked his head. “As Antari, he would still be mas aven.”

  My blessed.

  “Excellent,” said Lila. “Then call me that. Now,” she went on, scanning the hall. “Where is your blessed prince?”

  The servant pointed her toward the breakfast room, and she set off again. She found the glass-walled chamber overlooking the courtyard, its long table laden with sweet buns, and pies, and fruit. She was about to go in when she heard a sound across the hall.

  A small, joyous laugh that could only belong to Ren Maresh.

  There, at the far end of a sun-drenched gallery, Lila found the child sitting on a step, and at her side, light glancing off his copper hair, was Kell.

  Ren was chattering softly, and cupping something small and white in both her hands, and Kell was nodding soberly, his coat cast off beside him on the floor, and his sleeves rolled up, his face turned just enough for her to see his blue eye, and the way his lips moved as he spoke.

  He didn’t see Lila, and perhaps that was why she lingered, studying the gentle incline of his head, her fingers drifting almost absently to the ring beneath her shirt. Until she heard the sound of footsteps drifting toward her, not the hushed and hurried steps of a servant, or the tread of a soldier, but the slow, even glide of a body at home.

  Fuck, thought Lila as her hand dropped to her side.

  “Your Majesty,” she said aloud, turning toward the queen. Lila knew she should bow, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she offered the barest incline of her head, more a nod than an attempt at deference. The queen either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.

  “Please,” she said, “call me Nadiya. We are family, after all.”

  Family. The word scratched at Lila’s skin like rough wool. As far as she was concerned, family had nothing to do with proximity or blood. Family was a chosen thing. A label earned. Barron had been family. Kell was family. Alucard, and Stross, and Vasry, and Tav, and Rhy. But Nadiya had yet to gain purchase. Lila doubted she ever would.

  She raked her gaze over the queen.

  Facing each other, they looked like two sides of a warped mirror. They were the same age, and nearly the same height, and ever since Nadiya had hacked away the heavy mane she’d brought to court, their hair fell in the same way, skimming their shoulders. Their coloring was where they differed—the queen’s skin was olive where Lila’s was pale, her hair jet black where Lila’s was dark brown, her eyes the same shade where Lila’s were not, and her body curved in ways Lila’s never had, filling her dress while Lila’s shirt ran uninterrupted from her shoulders to her waist.

  But it wasn’t the ways they were different that bothered her.

  It was the ways they were alike.

  It was the way Nadiya looked at her, as if she were a prize. It was a look Lila herself had leveled at plenty of things. Things she had stolen, or killed for.

  Now the queen’s hungry eyes slid past her. To the gallery, and Ren, who was now holding the little white shape aloft, so Lila could see what it was: an egg.

  “She took it from the kitchen months ago,” mused Nadiya. “Rescued from a skillet. She’s convinced if she is kind enough, the egg will hatch. I cannot seem to convince Ren there is nothing there to rescue.” She inclined her head. “Children can be marvelous.”

  “You could just crack it open,” offered Lila. “I’m surprised it hasn’t spoiled.”

  “Oh, it would have,” said the queen. “But once a week, I trade it for a new one while she’s sleeping.” A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. “What harm is there, in hoping?”

  “And when the hope runs out?”

  “She’s four. I think it can last a little longer.”

  Ren laughed, and the queen and Lila both turned toward the sound. Kell was now holding the egg to the light, and tracing a shape along its shell.

  “He is a good uncle,” said the queen. “He’ll be a good father.” Lila snorted. Nadiya frowned. “Haven’t you ever wanted a child?”

  The question had a strange effect, like a corset cinched around her ribs, but the answer was easy, automatic. “No.”

  She half expected Nadiya to tut, to say that one day she would, but the queen only nodded thoughtfully, and said, “I always wanted one. I don’t know why. It wasn’t ego. Some women just want to see their own reflection. I wanted to know what it felt like. To make another person. And then, when she was here, I wanted to see what she would do. Who she would be. Every day, she is different. Every day, she is new.”

  “You talk of her like she’s an experiment.”

  “I suppose she is,” said Nadiya, though there was a dreamy quality to her voice when she said it. “A grand experiment.” She tore her attention away from her daughter. “I know you don’t like me.”

  Lila cocked a brow. “I don’t like most people, Your Majesty. You, I don’t trust.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It might have something to do with you expressing a desire to dissect me over dinner.”

  “I did say, after you were dead.”

  A servant appeared, a pot of tea and two cups balanced on a gilded tray.

  The queen poured, and handed one to Lila, and tempted as she was by the rich, dark liquid, the curls of steam, Delilah Bard still wasn’t about to drink anything offered by the queen. Oh, she took the cup, and turned it in her hand as if studying the pattern stamped into the porcelain’s side. Then, as she held Nadiya’s eye, Lila exerted her will, and the steam vanished, giving way to frost that cracked across the surface as the contents froze.

  The queen’s mouth twitched. “What a waste,” she mused, lifting her own tea to her lips. “I’m not your enemy, Lila.” Her gaze returned to Ren, and Kell. “Everything I do, I do for my family. For their future. For our world. If you would only help me, let me study your magic while—”

  “No.”

  “I know it’s not ideal. But there aren’t exactly a wealth of Antari subjects, and I’m not about to risk Rhy’s safety by testing Kell. Especially not in his diminished state.”

  “Your Majesty,” said Lila through gritted teeth, “I mean this with the most respect.” She turned to face Nadiya and said, “Go fuck yourself.”

  The queen pursed her lips. “You are an extraordinary person, Delilah Bard. I’m surprised you are not more … progressive. Your magic holds the keys to countless doors. And yet, you choose to hoard it.”

  “What can I say? I like being the strongest in the room.”

  Nadiya shook her head. “It is not just about magic, though. Think of the knowledge locked inside your blood. Who knows what it could do? It could heal the kingdom.” Her eyes brightened. “Perhaps it could even heal Kell.”

  In a step, the cup was gone from Lila’s hand, replaced by one of many blades, the edge pressed against the queen’s long neck.

  “Do not lie to me,” she hissed, and then the guards were storming forward, weapons drawn, and Lila didn’t want to make a mess. She backed away, sheathed the dagger at her hip. The queen held out her hand to stay them, then touched her fingers to her throat, as if expecting blood. As if Lila’s hand weren’t steadier than that.

  “I don’t know how to heal him yet,” said the queen, fingers falling, “but that doesn’t mean I’m lying. Progress takes time. And sacrifice.”

  Lila had never liked Nadiya, but she hated her then, hated that there was a chance—even a sliver of a chance—that she was right, which made her hate herself as well. Lila drew her blade again, and the guards twitched in warning, armor scraping as they took a half step forward, but instead of turning the blade on the queen, much as she longed to, Lila dragged the steel across the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist. She tipped the ice out of her tea cup, and held her bleeding arm over the empty vessel, crimson painting the delicate porcelain. And when it was half-full, she wrapped a kerchief around the cut, and tied it tight enough to hurt.

  “Happy?” she asked.

  The queen nodded, and took up the bloody cup. “It’s a start.”

  And because Lila had resolved not to make a mess, she walked away, turning her back on the queen, and the princess, and Kell, who still sat beside the little girl, his back to them and his head bowed forward on the steps.

  III

  Alucard hadn’t always been a morning person.

  Growing up, he’d savored sleep, but life at sea had taught him to get up with the sun, and ever since trading the Night Spire for the soner rast, he’d kept the habit, rising at dawn to train the royal guards.

  By the time he strolled into the breakfast hall at nine, he was wide awake, and sore from sparring. Perhaps Lila was right, and he was out of fighting shape. Or perhaps he was just getting old. Thirty-one. It didn’t sound like many years, but he swore, he felt each and every one of them.

  He kissed the top of Rhy’s head before drawing out a chair, murmured thanks to a servant as they poured a stream of hot black tea into his cup.

  The queen sat across the table, turning through papers, her pen flicking in the margins. She glanced up as he came in, but if she was thinking of his warning in the workshop, it didn’t show.

  Kell was there, too, much to Alucard’s chagrin. The prince didn’t sit, but instead stood drinking his tea, as if to emphasize the fact he wasn’t staying. Ren, on the other hand, was busy looking at a book of birds and ignoring the toast that Sasha was trying to put in her hand. The nursemaid shot Alucard a weary look.

  Just wait, he thought, until she can use magic. Ren was still too young, of course, to have an element, but she moved like his old friend Jinnar, a whirlwind, leaving chaos in her wake. Every day, Alucard expected to see colored threads unfurl around his daughter, to watch her magic bloom. But so far, the air around her was filled only with a halo of black curls and the occasional crow feather.

  “Morning, Luca!” she said brightly.

  Kell and Rhy both winced at the volume of the child’s voice.

  Rhy had never been a morning person; he rarely found his stride before noon, but today, he looked positively miserable, his head in his hand. “The bubbles,” he muttered. “The cursed bubbles.”

  “A little too much wine?” asked Alucard, leveling a heavy look at Kell. The prince said nothing, but Rhy dragged his head back up, the gold of his eyes foggy, tarnished.

  “Why do we keep that silver stuff?” he asked.

  “Because it’s wonderful in moderation,” said Alucard.

  “And better than a tonic at drawing out the truth,” added the queen, turning a page.

  “Burn it all,” hissed the king, indignant. “Tell me why I can heal from a knife to the chest faster than a bottle of spirits.”

  No one had an answer for that.

  Alucard swept an orange from the center of the table, and sat back, noting the empty place at their table. “Where’s the captain?”

  “She left,” said the queen.

  At which point Kell sighed and put down his cup.

  “Better go fetch,” muttered Alucard into his tea, and Kell made a rude gesture with his hand as he left. Alucard looked to Nadiya. “When did you see her?” The captain and the queen were oil and flame, safe so long as they didn’t get close enough to mix.

  Nadiya shrugged. “A passing moment in the hall.”

  Her green eyes were half-lidded as her pen flicked across her work. If he didn’t know better, he might think she was just waking up, instead of winding down, making notes before retiring to her rooms at last to sleep.

  “Kers la?” asked Ren, cheerfully slipping into the common tongue as she climbed the side of her mother’s chair, and jabbed a jammy finger at the papers by her plate.

  “This?” said the queen, her voice softening as it only did for Ren. “It’s a design for an amplifier.”

  Alucard tensed at the mention of the work, but he could see the page on the table, and it bore no resemblance to the Antari rings, or the golden chains.

  “Amplifier?” asked Ren, sounding out the word.

  “A way to make a person’s magic stronger.”

  Her tone was gentle, patient, but her speech didn’t change. Since the girl had been born, Nadiya had spoken to her as if she were a grown adult, bound inconveniently but temporarily in a child’s form. If she said a word Ren didn’t know, the girl would ask its meaning.

  Ren squinted at the page. “Why don’t I have magic yet?”

  Rhy looked up. It was his greatest fear, he knew, that his daughter would be like him. And he always told Rhy the same thing that Nadiya now told Ren.

  “You are young,” she said. “It will come.”

  “Daddy’s didn’t.”

  Alucard stiffened. Only a child could say something like that, stating the obvious without meaning or malice. Rhy met his wife’s eyes, waiting to see what she would say to that.

  Nadiya only smiled. “Your father is powerful in other ways.”

  Ren took this in, rocking heel to toe on the side of the chair. “If I don’t get magic,” she said, “can I still have my animals?”

  A smile caught the edge of Rhy’s mouth.

  “Of course you can,” said Nadiya.

  Ren nodded thoughtfully, and said, “That would be okay.” With that she hopped down, made to flee the table, but Sasha caught the child, guiding her back to her chair.

  “You don’t need magic,” said the nursemaid, “but you do need breakfast.”

  An easy quiet fell over the room as they ate.

  Alucard took it in. When he was young, a set table was a dangerous thing. His father looming at the head. His brother across. His sister beside. No chair for their mother—no space for sentiment. Those scenes, a reminder that looking like a family was more important than being one.

  That table was full of traps he could not see, ones just waiting to be triggered.

  Sit straighter. Speak up. Do not use that tone with me.

  There was no joy in those meals, only expectation, and Alucard could not wait to be excused, the air rushing back into his lungs only when he was free of that room.

  But as he looked around the table now, his chest grew tight for other reasons.

  This, he thought, this was a family. An odd one, perhaps, a strange and different shape, and despite Rhy’s moaning and the queen’s distraction and Ren’s restless squirming as if she were a pet trying to escape, while Sasha tried first to goad and then to bribe her into eating, there was nowhere else Alucard would rather be.

  Everyone he loved most was seated within reach. He laced his fingers through Rhy’s, and gave a gentle squeeze. And Rhy looked down as if Alucard’s hand there was a gift, some unexpected but wholly welcome surprise. He brought it to his mouth, and kissed his knuckles.

  Alucard smiled, and sipped his tea, and did his best to savor the moment, knowing it wouldn’t last.

  And it didn’t.

  Ren was the first to break away. Having been coaxed to eat an egg, and some toast, and half an apple, the child finally escaped, and flung herself toward the courtyard doors, Sasha on her heels.

  Their daughter’s presence was a clasp, holding them together. Without her, Nadiya rose, and made her excuses, collecting her papers and a sugared roll as she drifted up to bed.

  Their family peeled away like petals until it was just the two of them at the laden table. Even that didn’t last long. Before the tea had time to cool, Isra arrived, her short gray hair scraped back and her guard’s helm under one arm.

  “Your Majesty,” she said, bowing her head. “The merchants are here, to discuss the import rules for the Long Dark Night.”

  Alucard frowned. “Sel Fera Noche? You can’t intend to go ahead with that—”

  “Oh, not you, too,” said Rhy, dragging himself to his feet. Before Alucard could point out what a monumentally stupid idea that was, the king had snatched a sweet bun and followed Isra out.

  Alucard sighed, alone now, save the four servants posted like pillars around the edges of the room. Waiting to be summoned with a look, or simply an empty cup.

  “You can go,” he said, dismissing them all.

  He told himself it would be nice, to have a moment’s peace. But in the silence, his thoughts took hold. Alucard sat back, eyeing the mountain of food before him, as his appetite dissolved. His mind tried to latch on to Sel Fera Noche, but the festival was weeks away, and at the moment, they had a far more pressing problem. His conversation with Lila replayed through his mind, the threat of the Hand now amplified by their possession of a persalis.

  He bowed his head, resting it on his laced fingers as he tried to think.

  They could remove the royal family from the palace, but what message would that send?

  Footsteps shuffled into the room.