Raffaele meets Maeve’s gaze. His lips tighten into a tense line.

“It can burrow underneath the skin,” Maeve explains. “It does so with such speed and precision that the victim will not even realize it until it is too late.” She hands Raffaele the vial carefully. “Giulietta will be dead within the hour.”

Raffaele stares at the wriggling creature, then places it carefully in a pocket of his robes. “I will find a way tomorrow morning,” he says.

Maeve nods. “If we time this correctly, Giulietta will die as my navy invades her harbor. The throne will be ours before Master Santoro can turn tail fast enough back to the capital, and before the Inquisition can push back.”

“And what of Adelina?” Raffaele says. “What of Enzo?”

Maeve’s attention shifts. She reaches for her belt, pulls out a parchment, and unfurls it. It is a map of Estenzia and its surroundings. She points toward a spot in the forests near the city’s outskirts. Beside her, Augustine toys with the hilt of his sword, while her brother Kester’s eyes glow bright. “We are going to fetch him tonight.”

“Turn it one way,” said the merchant to the girl, “and you will see where you want to go. But if you turn it the other way, you will see where you are needed the most.”

—The Other Side of the Mirror, by Tristan Chirsley

Adelina Amouteru

The rains come tonight.

Lightning forks across the sky, and thunder shakes the windowpanes. I watch Sergio’s downpour from the court’s old entrance. The haunting cries of baliras fill the black sky overhead. The shores near Estenzia are churning furiously, and the chaos must have stirred the enormous creatures into the skies. Violetta tosses in a fitful sleep in the next room, the thunder working its way into her nightmares. Enzo sits out in the hall and sharpens his blade. He doesn’t interact with anyone else here. I know what he’s waiting for—I can almost feel it through our bond. He is looking forward to reuniting with the Daggers. I dwell on it with a sinking heart. Sooner or later, he is going to find out what really happened, and that my story to him is not the whole story at all.

From downstairs come low voices and the shuffle of boots. My mercenaries. They are restless, now that we will storm the palace tomorrow. Earlier, I’d walked among them to count how many of the Night King’s former men had decided to follow me. There are forty of them. A small number, to be sure, but they are deadly, each the equivalent of ten soldiers. Sergio tells me there are more, scattered across the land and waiting for our strike. “They won’t show themselves until you look like a sure bet,” he’d said earlier. “Then they’ll come out of the woodwork to help you finish the job.”

A light tap comes from the door. When I look over, I see Magiano walking toward me. He comes to stand beside me and watch the baliras haunting the wet skies.

“If the Star Thief were near us,” he mumbles, “I could control those baliras. We could fly right over the palace and land on its roofs.”

I stare at the sky, listening to their cries. “The storm has stirred them from their waters,” I reply. “Not even Gemma can control more than one, not in this agitated state.”

Magiano leans against the windowsill. “Do you really think Teren will help us?” he says. “I don’t remember him being great at keeping his word.”

“I know how he keeps his word,” I reply. A fleeting memory comes back to me of his pale eyes and twisted smile, how he’d watch me beg for more time whenever I went to see him in the Inquisition’s tower. I tense at the recollection. “He hates the Daggers more than he hates us. It’s all the advantage we need.”

Magiano nods once. His eyes seem distant tonight. Behind us, we both hear Enzo rise in the hallway and make his way downstairs. His boots hit ominous notes against wooden floors. Magiano looks over his shoulder, then back to me when the footsteps fade away. “The prince is a moody one, isn’t he?” he says. “Was he always this way?”

“Enzo has always been quiet,” I reply.

Magiano looks at me. Whatever taunts he might have had on the tip of his tongue now vanish, replaced with a grave expression. “Adelina, you keep waiting for him to become what he once was.”

My hands tighten against the windowsill. Even now, I can feel the tether between me and the prince pulling taut, calling for me. The whispers stir restlessly in the back of my mind. “It will take time,” I reply. “But he will come back.” My voice drops to a whisper. “I know it.”

He frowns. “You don’t believe that. I can see the truth on your face.”

“Do you say this to hurt me?” I snap, turning a fiery glare on him. “Or do you actually have a point to make?”

“I’m trying to say that you are living in a world of illusions,” Magiano says, reaching a hand out to touch my arm, “of your own creation. You are in love with something that no longer exists.”

“He is one of us now.”

Magiano leans closer. His eyes flash, his pupils black and round. “Do you know what I saw when I passed him in the hall? I looked down at him, and he up at me—I looked into those eyes and I saw … nothing.” He shivers. “It was like staring straight into the Underworld. Like he aches to return to where he came from. He is not really here, Adelina.”

“He is right here, in this building, with us,” I say through clenched teeth. “He is tethered to my life. And I will use him as I see fit.”