I wanted to wrap my arms around her, to let her start her life all over again. To give her a new story altogether, one complete with parents and a home. One in which she hadn’t been sold into servitude as a mere child. One in which she had her own name, rather than the one I’d made up for her.

“Do you like living with them?” I asked, trying to keep the censure from my voice.

“I don’t hate it,” she answered. “There’re worse places I could’a ended up.”

She was right, of course. Everyone in Ludania had heard the rumors of life in the work camps. Stories of children worked in the fields until they could no longer stand on their own two feet, and then being tied to the horses and dragged back to the camps. Stories of children who’d been chained to the fences for speaking out of turn, and then charred to death when the generator-power fences were started up. There were stories of intentional starvations and of guards experimenting on children who weren’t old enough to work, using all manner of medical, farm, and science equipment.

The camps were a source of childhood nightmares, and every little girl and boy in Ludania feared that if they misbehaved badly enough their parents might send them to the camps.

Orphans were often sent there when there was no other family. And I’d seen more than one household send their children away simply because they could no longer afford to feed them.

“Are you all right, Your Majesty?”

I blinked, frowning at Avonlea who stared back at me. I nodded slowly. “Of course. I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

Avonlea started to reach out to me, but she paused, her hand frozen halfway between us. Her face scrunched up. “I—,” she started. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

I glanced away from her, wiping my cheeks. I hadn’t realized I’d been crying. “It’s not you,” I assured her when I turned back to her. She was still watching me with that same horrified expression. “I swear it wasn’t your fault.”

It’s mine. I winced inwardly, realizing how negligent I’d been. There was still so much I had to do for my country.

max

He tried to tell himself a lone rider wasn’t a bad sign.

But it was a lie, and he knew it.

It was the middle of the night. A lone rider was always a bad sign.

“What do you think it means?” Claude asked from the empty library behind him.

“A message,” Max answered.

“From who?”

Both of them should have been in bed at this hour, but Max hadn’t been in his bed in days. Not since he’d watched Charlie board the train to the summit.

It had been too soon for her to go and too hard for him to let her. Sleep, ever since, had been damn near impossible.

Instead he spent his nights like this, staring out the palace windows. He was worried and afraid. He wouldn’t rest until Charlie was home again. Safe.

He turned to face Claude, who watched him with quiet resignation. Claude, who could have left him alone hours ago, but who stubbornly remained at his side. Just as he had for years. “Only one way to find out.”

The doors were already being opened when Max reached the entrance, and the messenger was escorted inside. His clothing was ragged and torn, and he was covered in grime that went far deeper than a day’s ride. His cheeks were lean, and dark circles ringed his eyes. He staggered slightly when Claude’s shadow passed over him, not an uncommon reaction—royal guards were known to make grown men cower in fear.

“Who sent you?” Max questioned the rider, who seemed to have a hard time keeping his gaze level.

The man glanced up, ever so slightly. Ever so hesitantly. “A-a man named B-Bartolo, Your High—” He stopped himself in time. It was a common mistake, one that was made often since people still assumed he was the crowned prince. But that legacy had died when Charlie—the rightful queen of Ludania—had taken his grandmother’s place on the throne. “I was sent with word that a party of ten soldiers was found slaughtered just outside the Scablands, just south of the train line.” He lowered his head now, unable to look at anything but the floor. “They were from the palace,” he offered nervously, as if he himself were responsible for the soldiers’ demise. “That’s all I was told. I ran my horse here fast as I could. Barely stopped to piss.”

Max looked to Claude, and wondered if his guard’s heart was racing nearly as fast as his own, but he knew that it wasn’t. Claude liked to tell that he’d been born without a heart.

Max’s, however, was trying to beat its way out of his chest.

There were only so many palace soldiers out there right now. And the only ones anywhere near the Scablands were those sent with Charlie.

“Damn,” he heard Claude mutter.

Damn, Max thought as his airway constricted, was an understatement.

xiv

The flowers were just out of my reach and I had to lean forward, the water lapping around my knees. My small hands—my fingertips—grazed one of the blue petals, sending the flower shooting away from my grasp.

I stood there for a moment, studying the still surface, trying to decide. I was already in too deep, deeper than I’d ever been before. But it was right there, one more step and I’d have it.

I held my breath and took a step. Only this time I wasn’t standing on the same slimy surface I’d been on before. This time I stood on something rigid, something scaly, something alive.

It moved before I could think, and the water around me thrashed before I could react. The scream that reached my throat came seconds after I felt sharp teeth sink into the tender flesh of my leg . . . tugging, tearing, ripping.