The hairs on the back of my neck rise and my heartbeat grows faster. What does he mean “and now this”?

King Etristo laughs but it’s too sharp to be genuine. “You are missing out on a rare jewel, Reymer,” he says. “Queen Theodosia isn’t much of a prize, to be sure, but the real treasure is Astrea itself and the magic there. You’ve seen what those stones can do. With the Kalovaxians done away with, you would control their sale. Apart from the Water Gems, as we discussed.”

The Water Gems. The words click into place, the missing piece of the puzzle. What Etristo was getting out of hosting me. What arrangement he and Dragonsbane had. It was never about helping me; it wasn’t even about money. It was about water. Before my thoughts can linger too long on that, the fighting continues.

“This is your problem, Etristo,” Czar Reymer scoffs. “You always want more, more, more, but you want too much. Etralia is wealthy enough.”

King Etristo spits at the ground next to his chair. “There is never such a thing as wealthy enough,” he says.

“There is when the Kalovaxians are involved,” he says. “The Kaiser is not someone to be crossed—surely these murders are proof enough of that.”

Murders. Not murder, as in only the Archduke. The Czar said murders. My heart lurches and my mind spins with thoughts of who else might have been killed in my stead this time. I think of Blaise and Artemisia and Heron, too busy trying to protect me to watch their own backs. If an assassin thought I was in my room and found them instead…I can’t let myself finish that thought.

“The Kaiser is after the girl. He has no interest in hurting you or making an enemy of Etralia,” King Etristo says.

It’s Czar Reymer’s turn to laugh, though it sounds vaguely hysterical. He covers his face with his hands and shakes his head before letting them fall to his sides again.

“Surely you aren’t blind, Etristo—the girl has never been the target of these attacks. If the Kaiser wanted her dead, she would be. The Kaiser is targeting suitors and sending a message to anyone who might stand against him. I hear that message loud and clear, and you would do well to listen as well.”

King Etristo throws his arms up. “Fine, then. Go. Run back to Etralia with your idiot son like the cowards you are, but I will not be reimbursing you for the funds you have already given me.”

At that, Czar Reymer’s face turns bright red and he takes a step toward Etristo. “That is my money. We had an arrangement, Etristo, and you guaranteed me that the girl would choose Talin. Since she hasn’t, that money was spent in ill faith and it will be refunded before we leave in an hour’s time.”

King Etristo only glares in return, and though he is at a height disadvantage, you wouldn’t know it from the intensity of his look. “I don’t make deals with cowards,” he says, practically spitting the word out.

Czar Reymer takes a step toward King Etristo, towering over him. “You’ve spent your life in your high tower, Etristo, surrounded by your walls and your deserts. You should not be throwing that word around so easily. You don’t know what a real war looks like, but I would be happy to enlighten you.”

With that, King Etristo is silenced for the first time since I’ve met him.

“I want that money refunded in an hour’s time and then my son and I are leaving this place before we end up dead as well.”

Without waiting for a response, Czar Reymer turns on his heel and storms away, leaving King Etristo alone with thunder in his expression.

* * *

—

Coltania and I wait until King Etristo leaves the garden before we emerge from our hiding place in the bushes. Though my mind is a panicked flood at the thought of another murder, Coltania remains quite calm. More than that—she simmers with a quiet anger.

“That gilded guttersnipe,” she mutters, eyes stuck to where the King stood seconds ago. “I can’t believe he promised the Czar your hand when he promised Marzen the same thing.”

I stare at her, mouth agape. “Didn’t you hear them? There has been another murder, Coltania, and the Czar made it sound like it was a suitor. It could be your brother.”

She shakes herself out of her thoughts and looks at me. “No,” she says. “No, it couldn’t be Marzen. We hired food testers and extra guards after the Archduke.”

I go through the other suitors in my mind, but in my gut I already know who’s been poisoned. After all, if the assassin is going after suitors I’ve shown favor to, there is one glaring probability. Before I can follow that train of thought, I’m already running out of the garden, ignoring Coltania’s cries for me to slow down.

FOR ONCE, I ACTUALLY YEARN for the stairs, long as the trek would be, because at least I wouldn’t have to stand still and wait, watching countless floors pass me by in the riser. It feels like every level inches by, giving my mind eons to wonder what I will find when we finally arrive.

Erik, dead. Erik, suffering the same fate as the Archduke. Erik, poisoned. Because of me. Because the Kaiser doesn’t want to kill me; he wants to hurt me, to scare me, to toy with me the way a cat toys with a mouse before devouring it.

The doors finally open on the Gorakians’ floor and I don’t even thank the riser operator before bolting down the already bustling hallway. Sta’Criveran courtiers in their bright clothes are milling about, speculating about what might have happened. As I run past, I hear only snippets.

Such a tragedy.

After all they’ve been through, they really are cursed.

The boy was too close to Queen Theodosia.

Maybe she’s cursed, too.

No, no, no, my mind screams, ignoring those voices as I hurry toward Erik’s room. Just when the door is in sight, a hand comes down on my arm.

“Theo,” Dragonsbane says, her voice low in my ear. “Come, you don’t want to make a scene.”

Though the words are sharp, there is an undercurrent of something else in her voice that I can’t put a name to, though distantly I think it might be something akin to kindness.

There are a thousand things I want to say to her about our last conversation, but none of that matters now. No words matter now. I yank my arm out of her grip and pick up my pace until I’m running, weaving around Sta’Criveran courtiers and ignoring her calling my name.

I don’t stop until I’m at the entrance of Erik’s room, where two guards are standing at attention, keeping the gawkers from getting too close. When I finally stop in front of them, they exchange uncertain looks.

“Let me in,” I tell them.

“Queen Theodosia, the King gave specific instructions that you aren’t—” one of the guards starts, but I don’t wait for him to finish. I take them by surprise and push in between them, forcing my way into the room, only to find no sign of Erik at all.

Instead, it is Hoa, lying on the ground next to a table holding a bowl of grapes. Her body is twisted at an awkward angle, with a cluster of grapes lying discarded next to her open right hand. Her face is twisted the other way, staring at me with glassy eyes that see nothing and a trickle of black blood dripping from the corner of her open mouth.

I stumble back a step, bringing my hand up to my own mouth. I’m going to be sick. I’m going to fall to pieces. I don’t know how I’ll put myself together again. Not this time.

Suddenly, I’m seven and she holds me while the Kaiser has my mother’s garden burned. I’m eight, waking up from another nightmare in which I watch the Theyn kill my mother. I wake up crying, but Hoa is there with a glass of water and a handkerchief—the only comfort she could provide with my Shadows watching. I’m nine, ten, eleven, onward, and she’s tenderly applying ointment and bandages to welts from my punishments. For a decade, Hoa lingered in the periphery of my life, but there is no doubt that she kept me alive in the only way she was able to.

And I couldn’t do the same for her.

I don’t realize I’m on the ground sobbing until strong arms lift me up and I find myself crying into a cotton shirt. I’m carried out of the room, away from Hoa, and I want to scream, to make this person put me down so I can go back to her, so I can stay with her just as she always stayed with me, but the words die in my throat, drowned out by more tears than I knew I had left in me.

Blaise carries me back to my room. Some part of me knows that he shouldn’t be here, that it’s dangerous, but he is and that is all I care about right now. Nothing exists outside my tears and the image of Hoa burned into my mind’s eye. I don’t care why he’s here, or how hot his skin is, as long as he keeps holding me. I can’t make myself stop crying, no matter how I try to force my breathing to slow.

He sets me down onto unsteady legs, but he keeps an arm around my shoulders.

“Someone should slap her,” I hear Artemisia say, not unkindly. “She’s going to pass out if she keeps breathing like that.”