S?ren’s eyes dart toward me and away again, settling on the stones in front of him. He looks so lost that for a moment I waver.

I know better than most what a person who has given up looks like. Scanning the room, I see a few ways he could end his own life—slamming his head against the stone floor, wrapping his chains around his neck, cutting his wrists on the nail sticking out of the wooden wall. I’m sure S?ren could find half a dozen more if he put his mind to it. Letting him do it might even be a kind of mercy.

But the world isn’t done with him yet, and neither am I.

“I’ll come back,” I tell him. “I promise.”

He nods, though his eyes are far away and his jaw is set.

“YOU DID WHAT?” BLAISE ASKS, barely remembering to keep his voice quiet.

With him, Heron, and Artemisia here, my cabin feels smaller than ever. There isn’t even room to move around. Artemisia and I sit side by side on my bed while Heron slouches against the wall next to the door and Blaise sits on top of my dresser. I can tell that he’d like to get up, to pace the room to clear his mind, but he can’t stand without stepping on Heron’s feet and there’s nowhere to pace.

“I didn’t know what was being done to him, though I’m assuming all of you did,” I say, keeping my voice calm and level as I glance between Artemisia and Blaise. Heron won’t look at me—he hasn’t since we left S?ren in the brig—and I don’t particularly want to look at him either. Blaise glances down, guilt written all over his face, but Artemisia holds my gaze, unabashed.

“We knew that if you found out, you would do something stupid. And alas, here you are, wanting to do something stupid,” she intones.

Outside of Dragonsbane’s presence, she’s prickly as ever, and as much as her words bristle, I’m glad to have her back.

“Who are we if we let him stay there?” I ask them. “How are we any different from the Kalovaxians if we act just like them? I’ve been in his position, only treated better. At least I was given a room. I wasn’t kept in chains. I was given clean clothes and good food.”

“You did nothing to deserve that,” Blaise says. “You didn’t lead any battalions, you didn’t end any lives. You were a child.”

He has a point, and it’s one I can’t argue with.

“S?ren can be a stronger asset if he’s on our side,” I say instead.

“If he’s on our side,” Artemisia echoes.

“He thought he was, before I betrayed him,” I point out. “He was ready to stand against his father and go to war.”

“He was ready for Astrea to join forces with Kalovaxians,” Artemisia corrects. “That won’t happen.”

“And I don’t want it to,” I say.

“You do, though,” Heron says, speaking for the first time. His voice is still raw at the edges, but most of the anger has dissipated. All that’s left is grief, which is even harder to bear. “You want us to join with him.”

“He wants to be different,” I say. “You saw that yourself, Heron.”

Heron doesn’t reply, but his jaw sets into a hard line.

“We have all the power here,” I continue. “He can help us and we don’t even have to offer him anything in return, no truce or mercy. He just wants his soul. He just wants to prove to himself that he isn’t his father. And we can use that to our advantage.”

“Theo…,” Blaise starts with a sigh.

“It isn’t an ideal situation,” I interrupt. “But right now, we’re heading to a foreign country where my hand in marriage is being sold to the highest bidder. Nothing about this is ideal.”

None of them answers, and a thrill of power rushes through me. We’re on the same side, I remind myself, though I’ve spent so long on my own side that it’s an easy thing to forget sometimes.

“My mother won’t let him go,” Artemisia says. “She’ll fight you every step of the way, and she’ll have a lot of support behind her. I’m not saying you’re wrong—I’m not saying you’re right either, mind you—but you can’t afford to turn her into an enemy.”

“Dragonsbane isn’t the best ally, I know,” Blaise adds. “But right now she’s the strongest one we have. We have to pick our battles.”

I remember thinking the same thing about the Kaiser, that I had to pick what I would fight him on and what I wouldn’t, and how I learned quickly that I didn’t stand a chance of winning any battles, so I didn’t even try to fight. I’m not under his thumb, I’m not powerless anymore, but I feel that way now. Thinking of S?ren in that dungeon, beaten and alone, makes me feel sick. I did that to him, I put him there, and now I can’t get him out.

“All right,” I say. The words taste bitter. “But as long as he’s down there, I want him as safe as he can be. Heron—” I break off. I have no right to ask it of him, not after what he’s lost, but I’m asking it anyway, even if I don’t say the words.

Heron swallows and holds my gaze. “I’ll heal him every other day,” he says. “And only the worst of it. Any more than that and it’ll be suspicious.”

* * *

—

After Blaise and Heron file out of the room to get back to their respective duties, Artemisia lingers next to me on my bed, picking at a puckered thread in the quilt and watching me with wariness heavy in her dark eyes. She seems afraid of me, which is strange since it’s often the other way around.

“You didn’t bring me into the meeting with my mother,” she says after a moment, each consonant sharp enough to cut.

“I thought it would be cruel, asking you to take my side over hers like that,” I say, but it’s a half-truth that she sees through immediately.

Her eyes narrow and she gets to her feet abruptly. “I don’t need pity, least of all from you.” Her voice is low and dangerous.

The words hurt. “I don’t pity you,” I say, though I’m not sure whether or not that’s true. But Artemisia doesn’t want nice words, softened and easy to hear. She wants hard, uncomfortable truth, and I understand that.

“You’re useless in your mother’s presence.” I meet her gaze as I say it. “I need people who can tell her she’s wrong, who will fight her and not cower.”

For a moment, she stares at me in shock. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says finally.

“You think I didn’t want you in that room?” I ask. “Of course I did. I needed it. Blaise and Heron have their strengths, but Heron is a broken-hearted dreamer and Blaise has trouble seeing the bigger picture—his focus is always me, not Astrea as a whole. I needed someone to say what needed to be said, and neither of them can do that. But neither can you when your mother is around. You become a mumbly, doe-eyed shadow and I had no use for that.”

She stands stock-still, expression hard and inscrutable. I expect her to argue, I expect her to fight back. I want her to. But instead, she lets out a breath and the fierceness in her deflates like a sail without wind.

“What happened in the meeting?” she asks.

I tell her about her mother’s plans to have me marry a foreign ruler, about how she’s already sailing us to Sta’Crivero. I tell her about the event the King there is hosting. I tell her I haven’t agreed to anything.

“That was smart of you.”

“Queens don’t marry,” I tell her.

Artemisia snorts. “Oh, that’s the only choice we have if we’re going to secure a large enough army,” she tells me. “But I know my mother and I’m sure she’s getting something else out of this arrangement. By not agreeing to betrothal yet, you have something my mother wants and so you have some measure of control.”

It isn’t what I want to hear, but it rarely is with Artemisia. It’s exactly why I need her, like this, by my side.

“Not enough power to free S?ren, though,” I say.

“Not by half,” she says before pausing. “But it may be a start.”

I consider that for a moment. Then I tell her, “Whatever it is between you and your mother, get it under control.”

Artemisia hesitates, then nods. She looks away, biting her bottom lip. “She underestimates you and that’s something you can use to your advantage, but don’t be foolish enough to make the same mistake. Don’t underestimate what she’s capable of.”

CRESS STANDS ON THE OTHER side of rusted cell bars, gripping them with her tiny, bone-white fingers. She only comes up to my waist now, though some part of me knows that she has always been just a bit taller, just a bit older, just a bit wiser. She isn’t anymore—she’s a round-faced child with yellow hair in two plaits that hang down past her shoulders. Her eyes are wide and full of concern.

“Are you all right?” she asks, speaking the Kalovaxian words slowly and clearly so that I can understand them. The way she says the words echoes somewhere deep in my mind, just out of reach. There is a distant, familiar ache in the pit of my stomach, but it’s drowned out by relief at the sight of her.

She could be Evavia, goddess of safety, I think, but that, too, doesn’t feel like my own thought. Not really. But it doesn’t matter. All I know is that I need help, that I have been drowning and here she is, a desperate, gasping breath of air.