“Where is she?”

“Gone.”

Magnus frowned, and a fresh wave of pain coursed through his head. “Gone where?”

The king tore a piece of bread off a loaf, dipped it into a bowl of melted butter, and chewed it thoughtfully. “Food even tastes better to me now. It’s like a veil of apathy has been lifted from each of my senses.”

“How delightful for you. I ask again, where is my grandmother?”

“I sent her away.”

Magnus blinked. “You sent her away.”

“That is what I said.”

“Why?”

The king put down his fork and held Magnus’s gaze. “Because she doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as we do.”

Magnus shook his head, trying to make sense of this. “She saved your life.”

The king scoffed. “Yes, I suppose she did.”

“You speak, but you make no sense. Did the bloodstone steal your sanity while it restored your health?”

“I’ve never felt more sane than I do at this very moment.” He glanced at the door where Milo now stood. “Milo, my good man, come and eat some breakfast. Magnus won’t be having any, so why let perfectly good food go to waste?”

“Thank you, your highness,” Milo said. “Is it true what I’ve heard? That Nicolo Cassian is dead?”

The king raised his brows.

“It’s possible,” Magnus allowed.

Milo smirked. “That is mildly disappointing. Pardon me for saying so, but I always hoped to kill him myself.”

Magnus found himself nodding in agreement. “He did have that effect on people.”

“Where’s Enzo?” the king asked. “There’s plenty of food here for him as well.”

“Enzo has left, your majesty,” Milo replied a bit reluctantly.

The king put down the bread and looked at the guard. “Where has he gone?”

“With the princess.”

The tentative way he said it made Magnus’s stomach churn. “Please be so kind as to tell me that the princess has gone shopping in the city and will return later.”

“Apologies, but I don’t know where they’ve gone, only that they left at dawn.”

Magnus’s heart began to race, and he shot an accusatory glare at his father. “What have you done now?”

The king shrugged, his expression unreadable. “I won’t mince words with you this morning, my son. Your grandmother is gone. And so is the princess. Neither will return here.”

Magnus stood up so quickly that his chair fell over backward. “I need to find her.”

“Sit down,” the king hissed.

“You threatened her, didn’t you? Both her and Selia. You chased them away.”

“Yes, I suppose I did. All while you slept away your drunken stupor until midday. You need to start thinking as clearly as I do, Magnus. Now that I’ve been restored, it’s time for us to take action.”

“Is that right?” Magnus could feel his voice getting louder and louder. “Action is what we need? Let’s see . . . there’s you, there’s me, and there’s Milo currently representing the once-great Limeros. That makes three of us against Amara’s army. And we don’t have Lucia with us, since you sent away the one person who could have found her!” He swore under his breath. “I need to find Cleo.”

“You need to do no such thing. That girl has been a plague upon us since the first moment she entered our lives.”

“Us? There is no us, Father. You think that anything is different now? A few encouraging words and pained looks do not make everything all right. You can try to stop me from leaving, but I promise you’ll fail.”

Magnus went straight for the door of the inn, his head in a daze. Cleo must have gone to Auranos, he thought. He’d start there. Someone would know where to find her.

Thank the goddess she’d been wise enough to take Enzo with her. But one single guard to protect her in the face of Amara’s massive occupation wasn’t nearly enough.

“Magnus, don’t leave,” the king said. “We need to discuss strategy.”

“Discuss strategy with Milo,” he growled. “Anything you have to say is utterly irrelevant to me.”

Magnus flung open the door, ready to storm out of the room, but three men were already standing there, blocking his way.

“Prince Magnus Damora,” one said, nodding. He looked at his companions. “See? I told you it was him. The prince of Limeros in the middle of Basilia. Who would have believed it? I remember you from your wedding tour. I brought my wife and children to see a pair of royals in their shiny, perfect clothing, to show them what we could never have as the lowly Paelsians you’ve always seen us as. And here you are, dressed like one of us.”

“So pleased to meet you, whoever you are.” Magnus’s eyes narrowed. “And now I suggest you get out of my way.”

“There’s a price on your head—yours and your father’s.”

“Is there?” Magnus gave them a thin smile. “And what price is on your heads if I detach them from your bodies?”

The stranger and his friends laughed at this as if it was the most hilarious thing they’d ever heard. “All of us? Even the Prince of Blood couldn’t take us all on.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“Kill them,” the king suggested. “We don’t have time for nonsense today.”