“Do you always let your Lead Inquisitor speak for you, Queen of Kenettra?” Maeve asks in a low voice.

“Would you have stepped in to save your gift, Queen of Beldain?” Giulietta replies, a small smile playing at the edges of her lips. There is a coldness in her voice, a challenge, and suddenly, it seems the polite words exchanged only moments ago will be for nothing.

Then, Giulietta shakes her head. “Forgive my Lead Inquisitor’s actions,” she finally says in a loud, clear voice. “He defends his country fiercely, that is all.”

Raffaele looks on as Maeve rises, bows a farewell to Giulietta, and takes the reins of her new horse. She leads the stallion down the path, toward the Estenzian palace, as the crowd watches her go.

Giulietta studies Raffaele awhile longer. Beside her, Teren notices the way she admires Raffaele’s features. He scowls.

Raffaele’s thoughts spin. Never has he heard of such conflict between the queen and Teren. More so, Giulietta’s attitude toward malfettos seems to have shifted since the time when she wanted Enzo dead. Now that she has her throne, has she given up on her supposed war against malfettos? Had it all been part of her plan to both secure Teren’s support and get rid of her brother? Raffaele studies her energy, wondering. Will Giulietta punish Teren for defying her?

Finally, Giulietta stands up. Her Inquisition gathers to escort her. She walks down the steps, stops before Raffaele, and walks once around him. She kneels down to his eye level. “Rise, consort,” she murmurs, lifting his chin. Her touch is firm, even harsh. Raffaele trembles and does as she says.

“Come,” she commands. Then she turns away, toward the palace.

Uncle Whitham, quickly out of bed!

Uncle Whitham, he’s come for your head.

Hide under the stairs, hide anywhere,

Uncle Whitham, he wants you dead.

—“Uncle Whitham and the Ghost of Darby,” children’s rhyme

Adelina Amouteru

The next morning, I wake up in the Little Baths feeling strange.

I lie very still for a moment. It’s not pain, exactly. Instead, there is a faint pressure in the air all around me, making everything blurry. I close my eye and wait. Maybe I’m just dizzy. I slept poorly, haunted by nightmares of bleeding kings, and now I’m exhausted. Or maybe it’s the moisture in the air—when I glance up at the holes in the ceiling, the sky looks overcast, the clouds a dark gray. The whispers in my head are stirring again, active as usual after a night of vivid dreams. I try to understand what they’re saying, but today they are incomprehensible.

When I open my eye again, the feeling has faded. The whispers quiet down, and I pull myself up to sit. Beside me, Violetta is still asleep, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Magiano is nowhere to be seen.

I sit for a while, savoring the silence and the cool recesses of the bathhouse ruins.

Moments later, the leaves high above us rustle, and a figure appears through the holes in the ceiling, blocking out some of the light.

“We need to get you out of Merroutas,” Magiano calls as he hops down. Violetta stirs at his voice. She pushes herself onto her elbows. I watch him, admiring how nimbly he skips from beam to beam until he finally lands on the marble floor in a plume of dust. His hair and face are obscured behind cloth, wet with rain. “Do you know what a mess you’ve made of this city?”

He doesn’t sound very upset about it. “What’s happening?” I ask.

He just grins and shakes water out of his hair. “A wonderful mess, that’s what,” he says. “The White Wolf’s name is on everyone’s lips, and rumors of what happened at the Night King’s court have spread like fire. Everyone wants to know who managed to kill him.” Magiano hesitates here, for the slightest instant. “Not a bad start, my love, although considering that you’re now the most hunted person on this island, you might want to escape. Your stunts have forced the city to seal its port. As you can see, we may have some trouble getting out of here.”

Violetta gives me a look, and I return it without reacting. “Have you heard anything from the Night King’s former mercenaries?”

Magiano undoes the cloth shrouding his face. “I’m sure you’ve earned yourself some enemies after last night. But you’ve also attracted admirers. Look.” He tosses something at me.

It’s a small scroll. “Where did you get this?”

“You don’t think I have connections in this city?” Magiano gives me an indignant scowl, but when I keep waiting, he rolls his eyes. “A friend of mine works down at the ports. He passed it along to me this morning.” He waves impatiently at me to open the message.

I untie the scroll’s string, and the paper unfurls.

My heart races. I turn the paper this way and that, while Violetta looks at Magiano. “But this is useless,” she says. “What ship? Where, when?”

Magiano takes the message from me and rubs the paper between his fingers. “Not useless,” he corrects her. “Hold the paper up to the light.”

Violetta does, moving the paper until it’s directly under a sunbeam. I scoot closer for a better look. It takes me a moment to see what Magiano is talking about—under the light, the paper has a faint watermark on it. It resembles the Night King’s mark, except that the blade cutting through the crescent moon is wide, with a deep blood channel down its center.

“The Double-Edged Sword,” Magiano says. “That’s the name of the ship. It’s a narrow devil of a caravel—it actually looks like a sword, if you squint at it properly. A part of the Night King’s private fleet.”