“I miss my old life.” Aqua’s voice trembled, and a tear spilled down her cheek as she whispered, “I miss Mama.”

Her friend, Razi, wrapped her in a tight hug. “I do too. She’d be so proud to see you like this. Now get out there before Ali starts looking for you and—”

The pantry door flew open, and the kitchen head, Razi's mother, stood glaring at them with Alistair peering over her shoulder. “What are you two doing in here?” she asked.

Aqua aimed a nervous yet swift wipe at the tears that were falling from her eyes. “Last-minute wardrobe consultation.”

“You have flour on your hands,” Alistair said.

“That happens when you make pastry dough.” she quickly dusted her palms together and blinked the last of her tears away. Ali needed someone to stand with him tonight, and she was all he had left. It didn’t matter that she kept forgetting to behave like a real princess. It only mattered that when he faced his new subjects she was at his side.

“Princesses don’t make pastry dough,” Ali said, his dark eyes on hers.

Aqua snorted. “This one does.”

“Princesses also don’t snort.” Ali’s voice was strained, but he didn’t sound angry. He hadn’t sounded angry since the night they’d fled from the bounty hunter who’d killed their mother and awakened to the news that the entire royal family had taken sick and died, leaving him, in the absence of any other blood relation to the king, with an uncontested claim to the throne. Instead, Ali sounded tense. Worried. And grieved in way that even Aqua, with her shared heartbreak over their mother’s death, couldn’t seem to touch.

“Look at our princess in a gown. Ready to dance! Maybe you’ll find a nice young man tonight and be swept off your feet. Now, no kissing behind the ballroom pillars, and no—”

“Stop, Mama,” Razi said as Ali tugged on his collar as if it were choking him, and the princess’s cheeks heated.

This wasn’t a fairy tale. She was in more danger of losing her footing while dancing than of being swept away by a handsome nobleman’s kisses.

Aqua’s stomach fluttered as her brother took her arm and turned toward the hallway that led to the ballroom.

Arched windows lined the passage, and long, sheer curtains fluttered in the sea breeze that swept in through the open windows and chased the lingering heat of the summer’s day out of the palace. Bells rang from the palace’s tower, sonorous and deep, announcing the beginning of the coronation ceremony.

The same bells had announced the royal family’s funeral three weeks earlier, and black bunting still fluttered from the tower in honor of their deaths.

“Aqua, I’m serious about you acting like a proper princess tonight. It’s important.”

“Why? You’re the king. You’re the one everyone is here to see.”

Her brother glanced at the doorway and spoke rapidly. “We can’t hold a kingdom without alliances, both from within and without. Tonight there will be a host of potential allies in that room. Members of AnDràz’ Assembly, royalty and nobility from seven of the ten kingdoms—”

“Including Elphie?”

“Yes.” He gave her an exasperated look.

Aqua's smile brightened. “I’ll be in charge of courting a relationship with the Ephieans. They make excellent allies.”

The night was starting to look interesting.

“I’m being serious, Aqua.”

“So am I.”

He looked at the ceiling and drew a deep breath. “You have to be a proper princess. No snorting in scorn.”

“Even if someone richly deserves it. Understood.”

“You dance with everyone who asks.”

“Wait . . . everyone? Even if they’re old?”

“Yes. And you make polite conversation. No wayward opinions about how boring you think small talk is.”

“It’s not just boring, it’s entirely useless.” Ari twitched her skirt to the side as the first trio of maids from the kitchen, carrying trays of food for the buffet table, hurried past.

Ali lowered his voice. “It’s not useless. Think of it as an interview to see if you both understand how to be diplomatic.”

She sighed. “So to be clear, I’m not supposed to show my true opinion—”

“If your true opinion is something other than polite, diplomatic interest.”

“I can’t express myself with inarticulate noises—”

“Not under any circumstance.”

“I have to dance with everyone who asks, even if my feet hurt or I want to go eat some snacks in peace—”

“And that’s another thing. Don’t get caught stealing snacks.” He gave her a stern look.

Stars, not this again. “It was only the one time. Besides, technically you can’t steal something that is offered to you for free.”

“It was still difficult to explain to the guests why the newly acknowledged princess of AnDràz would stuff one of every appetizer in her handbag and try to smuggle them out of the ballroom.” Ali held her gaze.

“Just be a proper princess tonight. Please. We need allies, and these people need to believe wholeheartedly that you are next in line for the throne in case . . .”

“In case you die? You’re seventeen, in perfect health, and nearly always surrounded by guards. Why are you talking like this?” Her voice was sharper than she’d intended, but his words had ignited a spark of fear she didn’t know how to extinguish.

The loss of her mother was a dark pit of grief inside her. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing her brother too.

He cast a quick glance at the open doorway fifty paces to their left and leaned closer to her. “There are only two of us left, and it’s my job to make sure AnDràz stays safely in the hands of a competent leader. Someone the people will follow. When—if I’m not here to rule, then you have to be ready to take my place. That means you need powerful allies. And you don’t get powerful allies unless people view you as a real princess. A true heir to the throne.”

There was an edge of desperation in his voice, and she studied him for a moment.

He’d lost weight in the three weeks since the rest of their family had died. His formal coat hung a little loose across his shoulders, and his high cheekbones were sharp slashes in a face that otherwise looked remarkably like her own—golden-brown skin, full lips, and the wide dark eyes they’d both inherited from their father.

Whatever burden of grief Aqua was bearing, his was twice as heavy. The weight of the kingdom had fallen across his shoulders, and if he needed her to pretend she was comfortable acting like nobility, she could do it. They only had each other now.

Before that thought could worm its way into her heart and send another piercing ache through her veins, she forced herself to give him a little smile.

“Fine. No scorning dumb ideas, no turning down dances with potential allies, no complaining about small talk, and no sneaking into the garden for a little midnight mayhem. You really know how to take the fun out of things.”

Ali laughed—a quick burst of merriment that seemed to surprise him as much as it did her. Tucking her arm in his, he said quietly, “Thank you. You and me against the world, right?”

She pressed her free hand against her fluttering stomach and took a deep breath. “Always.”

The coronation passed by in a blur of droning words from the head of the noblemen’s Assembly, the unfamiliar weight of the crown on Aqua's head, and the stomach-churning knowledge that the eyes of AnDràzian nobility and the invited representatives from seven other kingdoms were focused on her. It was a relief when the ceremony concluded and the dancing began. At least now she had to deal only with the scrutiny of one dance partner at a time.

Also there were the delights of the buffet table to consider.

Three hours later, she was busy wishing a pox upon the ballroom and everyone in it.

She’d danced with every person who asked (oh joy).

She’d made small talk until she was in danger of losing her mind (more joy).

And she hadn’t put a single snack into the beaded bag that hung from her wrist (one giant stinking heap of joy).

Lord Hamish from the kingdom of Sprité had speculated that someone from the Assembly had poisoned the king, queen, and baby prince in the hope that Alistair (who is her brother by the way) would make a more malleable ruler. Sir Jabin of Monarcia had talked for ages about the economic ramifications of having a seventeen-year-old king whom half of AnDràz seemed to distrust. Lord Kadar of Beligni had winked and assured her that many a throne had been taken with bloodshed and there was no shame in it.

But none of the foreign guests was as bad as her partners from AnDràz itself. Each wore a black cravat in honor of the mourning period that would continue for another three weeks. And each asked razor-sharp questions that both grieved and infuriated Ari. She had her answers memorized by now.

Yes, their father had asked them to leave the palace after the baby prince’s birth, but he hadn’t done so out of anger, and he’d given them a generous stipend to help them build a new life somewhere else. And no, she and her brother had no grudge from it.

A breeze drifted through the garden and cooled the heat from her skin.

She slipped her shoes off to let her feet sink into the luxurious carpet of grass that edged the bushes. Taking a bite of a crepe stuffed with beef and sweet cheese, she tipped her head back to gaze at the stars that dusted the heavens like sweet silver sugar.

Maybe, just maybe, somewhere in the night sky, her mother was looking down on her. Maybe she already knew the kind of trouble Ali was facing with his subjects. The kind of trouble she was having adjusting to being a real princess.

She closed her eyes and remembered her mother’s soft voice. Telling her not to scrub the floors because she’d chap her hands. Consoling her when the king refused to acknowledge her by weaving stories of poverty-stricken princesses who did heroic deeds and saved kingdoms. Urging her to take care of her brother, who lived beneath the weight of his father’s expectations without the benefit of his love.

“I’m trying,” she whispered, hoping her words would somehow find their way to her mother’s ears.

“What are we doing out here?” Razi asked as she came to stand beside her, the tray of wineglasses still in her hands.

“Escaping.” She opened her eyes.

“If I escape for too long, Mama will hear of it,” Razi warned, though she made no move to go back inside.

“I’ll cover for you. I can’t go back inside yet. If I have to suffer through one more conversation about how Father and his family died or why my brother is too young to take the throne, I’m going to forget how to be diplomatic.” Aqua took another bite of crepe.

“I doubt Ali would like that very much,” Razi said as she set her tray of wine down and stretched her back.

“What wouldn’t I like?” Alistair had left the ballroom and joined them. His black cravat was still perfectly tied, his dress coat impeccably smooth, but he looked haggard. As though a bone-deep weariness was consuming him. Maybe this was what being king did to a person.

Or maybe, like her, his night had been filled with people speculating about his ability to rule AnDràz and the possibility that the royal family’s death had been a convenient way for Ali to come into power.

“I was saying that you wouldn’t like Aqua to forget how to be diplomatic, Your Highness.” Razi lifted her hair from the back of her neck and turned toward the sea breeze.

“You don’t have to start calling me Your Highness simply because I’m king now.” Ali pressed his fingers to his forehead as if he had a headache and then looked at his sister. “And we really do need you to keep being diplomatic, though I’d love a front-row seat to you putting a few people in their place.”

“Point me in the right direction,” she said, and was rewarded with a weary smile.

“Things will settle.” His brother sounded cautious. “Once people see that I can work with the Assembly and that I can take a strong stand against the violence and crime that seem to be spreading out of the slums and into the city proper.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” A lean, immaculately dressed man with pale skin, auburn hair, and unnerving golden eyes stepped out of the garden and into the light of the lanterns.

Alistair sucked in a sharp breath. His voice shook as he asked, “What are you doing here? You weren’t invited.”

The man smiled, slow and cruel, and Aqua shivered.

In a voice like polished marble, he said, “Come now, dear boy. Did you really think something as inconsequential as a guest list could keep me away?”

She stared at the man, and then looked up at Ali’s face.

Her brother’s lips were set in a thin line, and anger—for the first time since the night their mother had been killed by the queen’s hunter—lit his eyes. Without looking at her, he said quietly, “Aqua, Razi, go back to the ballroom.”

“I don’t think I should.” Aqua moved to stand by Ali while Razi took a tiny step back toward the ballroom door, torn between obeying her king and staying with her best friend.

He couldn’t be from VarLumé, because it was a sorceress, not a wizard, who controlled the land.

That meant he had to be a faerie.

And that meant her brother was in way over his head.

Ali took another step toward the man. “Open that door and leave us be. We’ve settled our terms. I owe you nothing for the next nine years and eleven months.”

Aqua stared at Ali, her mind racing to make sense of his words and coming up empty. The panic she’d felt in the ballroom earlier snaked through her veins again, sending her heart racing. What was going on?

The man smiled. “Didn’t read the fine print, did you?”

Alistair froze.

“Why do you think I wanted a king in my debt?”

Ali glanced at her, his gaze haunted.

The man closed the distance between them. “The fine print, my boy, says that you are to do nothing to impede my business in your kingdom. You cannot interfere with my activities. This is simply a courtesy visit to let you know that there will be a little trouble at the docks tomorrow morning, and that you are to order the city guard to stand down. In fact, stand them down in the merchant district as well. Not just tomorrow, but for the foreseeable future.”

She glared at the man while her heart pounded. She didn’t know what kind of business he had in AnDràz, but if he didn’t want Ali’s interference, it was likely he was part of the growing wave of crime and violence Ali’s new subjects desperately wanted him to end.

“And if I don’t?” Ali’s voice was full of the kind of bravado he used when he knew he’d been beaten but was refusing to admit it.

The man’s smile winked out. “Then you will pay your debt in full. Immediately. And nobody survives that.”

Ali’s shoulders bowed, and the man snapped his fingers again. The door flew open, and the guards tumbled out, but the man turned and disappeared into the darkness.

“We should go back inside,” Ali said quietly. “People must be looking for us by now.”

She dug in her heels and pulled him to a stop when he tried to move toward the ballroom. “That’s it? No explanation for the creepy little man with the debt he’s holding over your head?”

“No.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” She glared at him. “Did you see what he did with the door? He has to be a faerie. Why are you mixed up with someone who can do magic? And what did he mean when he said that when you pay your debt in full, you won’t survive?”

Ali met her gaze, his expression fierce. “I was backed into a corner, and I had to make a bargain with him. It’s my problem, and I’ll deal with it. But you are going to stay out of this, and whatever you do, you are going to stay far away from Zane Regalus. Promise me.”

“Fine. I’ll stay away from him.” It was an easy promise to make. The man made her feel like she was dangling by a thread over a deep, black hole. But if her brother thought she was going to stay out of this and ignore the threat to her brother, he was a fool. It was the two of them against the world; and the last thing her brother needed to deal with on top of questions about the legitimacy of his kingship and an economy shaken by a spike in crime was a faerie threatening him over a bargain.

She couldn’t stop the nobility from questioning Ali’s ability to rule.

She couldn’t stop criminals from targeting AnDràz’ cities.

But she could figure out what kind of faerie creature Zane Regalus was, and maybe that would help Ali figure out how to get free of him.

Ali straightened his shoulders, nodded to Razi as she snatched up her tray of fizzy wine, and then took Aqua’s arm and gently steered her toward the ballroom.

She stayed by his side, smiling until her face felt like it would never resume a normal expression and gritting her teeth at the barbed questions and insinuations many AnDràzians tossed at her brother.

Ali was going to have to make time in his busy schedule to have a heart-to-heart with her about whatever bargain he’d struck. In the meantime, she’d start asking questions about Zane. If a faerie creature with magical power was in AnDràz, someone would’ve heard of it.

If that filthy faerie thought he was going to use the bargain he’d made with Ali to take her brother’s life, he was going to have to go through Aqua first.

Zane surveyed the docks with cold satisfaction.

Deckhands hauled boxes of freight up the long ramps that led from the dock to the ships rocking gently in their berths along the inner harbor. Merchants scurried around piles of goods, issuing orders, while the ships’ captains called out commands to check rigging and move lively.

At the mouth of the dock, where the weather-beaten planks met the crushed seashell road that edged Nakdasha, his domain in AnDràz, the harbormaster stood with a schedule of departures and arrivals in his hands.

Not a single city guard in sight.

The sun crept higher, tearing through the early morning mist with pale fingers. Flocks of seabirds cawed as they swooped over the golden waves of the sea, diving to snatch fish with their sharp beaks.

Zane allowed himself a small smile. Like a seabird, he was prepared to descend on his prey without warning.

Without mercy.

And now he no longer had to account for interference from the crown. With the new king of AnDràz firmly in his debt, he could conduct his business out in the open.

His would be the name whispered in secret by a kingdom too terrified to speak of him in broad daylight. He would be the cautionary tale parents told their children at night and the clarion call of hope for those desperate enough to bargain their lives away. He would do as he pleased with relentless force; and by the time he made a move for the throne, there would be no one left to dream of opposing him.

Once upon a time, he’d served a crown with no desire to wear one himself.

But that was before the betrayal.

Before his exile.

Before the fear of another human uncovering his secrets turned his dreams into nightmares.

When he was in power, when the kingdom was cowering at his feet, he would force every subject to sign a contract in blood. A promise that if they ever asked questions about him—his present or his past—they would immediately pay for it with their lives. He’d finally be untouchable.

He glanced around once more, meeting the eyes of Mori, his debt collector, and the handful of enforcers who were scattered about, blending into the busy rhythm of the dock until the time came to spring the trap.

A flurry of activity at the mouth of the dock caught his attention, and his eyes narrowed as a woman carrying a small child on one hip and a worn satchel over her shoulder shoved a piece of parchment into the harbormaster’s hands and gathered her other four children close while he read the document.

A shipping order. Confirmation that she’d scraped together her meager coin and purchased a berth for herself and her miserable brood aboard a large Elphian cargo ship bound for the remote port of Delphy.

She’d been careful. Secretive. She’d trusted no one.

It didn’t matter. Zane had spies everywhere, including the dock. Cold rage filled him as she took the parchment from the harbormaster with shaking hands and urged her children onto the dock and toward the ramps.

Humans. Greedy, easily manipulated, and unfaithful to their last breath.

He eased behind a merchant who was loudly ticking off the items on his cargo list and waited while she rushed her children past his hiding place. She was muttering desperate pleas for them to move faster. Be quieter. Hurry.

As the last child, a boy who looked maybe ten years old, moved past Zane, pushing a younger girl ahead of him and glancing around the dock with worried eyes, he left his place of concealment. Lunging forward, he grabbed the boy’s arm and spun him around.

The boy’s eyes grew big, and he pulled back, but he was no match for Zane.

“Oh, Mila, I believe you’re forgetting someone,” he called, his voice cutting through the dockside clamor and bringing the woman to a halt.

She spun, and terror flooded her face at the sight of her son caught in his grip.

“Please.” She dropped the satchel and raised a trembling hand toward Zane as her other children clustered around her, their eyes fixed on their older brother.

“Please, I’m begging you!” She fell to her knees and clutched for her children as the enforcers dragged them away from her.

“Beg all you want.” His voice was soft as he stepped toward her. “Plead. Grovel. Promise me anything if only I won’t take what you already agreed to give.”

She reached for his boots with trembling hands. “Not my children. They aren’t part of this. Please. Take me, but spare them.”

He crouched beside her.

“And if I do that, what will my other debtors think? Why would they not also try to defy me?”

She choked out her children’s names between sobs.

Zane raised his voice to be heard above her cries. “Ghlacadh anam de Mila Ragris agus mianach a dhéanamh.”

Strands of brilliant white streaked through her veins to gather in her chest. Somewhere behind him, a child wailed. Mila’s eyes rolled back in her head, and Zane stood, holding out the flask as the light slowly separated from her body and hung in the air before gently winding its way into the mouth of the bottle. Mila’s body hit the dock with a thud, and her children screamed.

He pushed the stopper back into the flask and returned it to his pocket.

Another soul captured and ready to join the hundreds that had come before it and be turned into Caldoni, a new drug of his own creation that was lining Zane’s pocket with enough coin to make a lesser man happy.

Zane, though, wasn’t happy. Coin didn’t protect you. It didn’t save you from your secrets.

Only absolute power did that.

He looked around the docks, smiling grimly at the shocked, terrified faces of those who were close enough to have seen Mila’s soul exit her body.

Still not a single city guard in sight.

Power was telling the king to leave the docks unprotected and having him obey.

Power was knowing when his debtor was going to betray him.

Power was the fear he saw on the faces of those who dared to meet his gaze as he stood over Mila’s body.

Leaving her corpse crumpled on the dock, Zane turned on his heel and walked away.