Warily I open the door, only to find no one on the other side. I lean out and peer down the hall in either direction, but the hall is empty. I almost close the door again before I notice the rolled piece of parchment on the ground in front of the door.

I pick it up and bring it back inside with me, closing the door firmly behind me. The letter is sealed with Søren’s sigil of a drakkon breathing fire, so I slip it into the pocket of my dress.

“It must have been the wind,” I tell Hoa.

She doesn’t seem to believe me, though. When she leaves the room a moment later, balancing the tray of leftover lunch food in her arms, she gives me a suspicious glance. I smile at her like it’s any other day, but I don’t think it fools her.

Not for the first time, I wonder how she sees me. She’s known me since I was six years old, she’s held me when I’ve cried, she used to tuck me into bed. I don’t trust her—I think the part of me that trusts people has been irreparably broken—but I do love her, in a way. It’s a shadow of the love I feel for my mother, roughly the same shape but without the color or warmth. Hoa looks at me sometimes like she’s seeing her own shadow of a ghost. But I can’t ask her anything about it, and she certainly couldn’t tell me anything if I did.

When the door clicks shut behind her, I take the letter from my pocket and break the seal with my pinky nail before unrolling it.

“The Prinz?” Blaise asks.

I don’t answer him except to nod. Søren’s handwriting is a sloppy, rushed scrawl that makes it difficult to read.

 Dear Thora,

 I dreamt of you last night and when I woke this morning, I could have sworn your scent lingered in the air around me. It’s been like this all week. You haunt my mind both sleeping and waking. I keep wanting to share my thoughts with you, or ask you for your opinion on things. Usually I look forward to time away from court, when it’s only my crew and me at sea. There are no pressures, no formalities, no games apart from those played with cards and ale. But now I would give anything to be back in that godsforsaken palace because you would be with me.

 The short of it is: I miss you terribly, and I’m wondering if you miss me as well.

 Erik has been teasing me relentlessly about you, though I suspect he’s a bit envious. If I were a better man, I would encourage him to pursue you and I would let you go, because I know he’s a safer choice for you. We both know what my father’s wrath would be if he learned how much I care for you. I’m not selfless enough to step aside, though if you asked me to, I would certainly try. You could ask me for the ocean itself and I would find a way to give it to you.

 The seas are smooth and if everything goes as easily as it should, I’ll be back before the new moon with good tidings that should make my father a very happy man. If you would like to send me a letter, and I hope that you do, leave it where you found this one and trust that it will find me.

    Yours,

  Søren

I read the letter twice, trying to smother the giddiness his words bring out in me. If I were alone, I might smile. I might press the letter to my heart, my lips. I might imagine him, in his cabin with only a candle for light, laboring over the words and chewing on the end of his quill as he tries to put his thoughts on the paper. I might wonder what, exactly, he dreamt about me.

But I’m never alone, and for once, I’m grateful for it. My Shadows’ eyes dissect every twitch in my expression, reminding me who I am and what’s at stake. Especially after our argument earlier, I’m sure they are looking for signs that I’m having doubts, and I can’t let them know that I am.

I can’t let them know that there is a part of me falling for the Prinz they want me to kill.

“He doesn’t say anything interesting, no mention of Vecturia,” I say, crumpling the paper in my hands and beginning to rip it into shreds. “It’s a love letter, nothing about what he’s doing. The seas are smooth, he expects the trip to be easy and quick. Of course, this was a few days ago. He said he’d be back before the new moon. That’s only two weeks away.”

“He should be getting to Vecturia today, if the seas are calm,” Artemisia says. Her voice is still sharp at the edges, our earlier argument unforgotten.

“It’s a shame none of you are Fire Guardians,” I say, looking down at the scraps of paper cradled in my hands and wishing I could burn them. The pieces are no bigger than my pinky nails, but I wouldn’t put it past the Kaiser to have someone rifle through my rubbish and reassemble them.

Not for the first time, I wonder if I could start a fire. If the legend is true and Houzzah’s blood truly runs through my veins, it should be simple, even without training or a gem. I’ve felt the draw of the Fire Gem more intensely than any of the others, the strong temptation to call on it and use whatever power I can summon. But I won’t test that theory. Not ever. Before the siege, I’d often heard stories of humans who thought themselves worthy of power they weren’t blessed with in the mines. I remember how the gods punished them for their pride or recklessness. I can’t risk their wrath, now more than ever, when one mistake could ruin me. Could ruin Astrea forever.

I hear Artemisia’s words again, her doubt in the gods and their power. It’s been nagging at me, this suspicion that maybe she has a point. Why haven’t the gods saved Astrea if they love us so much? If I’m truly descended from Houzzah, how could he have let the Kalovaxians treat me this way and done nothing? I don’t like to think about that or ask those questions, but I can’t help it.

But my mother is waiting for me in the After, I have to believe that. If she’s not—if there is no After—I don’t know what I’ll do. The idea of seeing her again one day is the only thing that’s gotten me out of bed some mornings. Legend says that using a gem without the gods’ blessing is sacrilege and sacrilegious souls aren’t allowed into the After. As much as I want to feel fire at my fingertips and bring the world around me to ash, I won’t jeopardize the After for it.

“Art,” Blaise prompts, drawing me out of my thoughts.

“I can help with that,” she says.

I hear the sliding of a door opening and closing before my own door opens and Artemisia slips in, drawing her hood back and showing me her face for the first time. I swallow my surprise—she doesn’t look at all how I expected her to.

She’s so slight she could almost pass for a child, though I would guess she’s close to my own age, maybe a little older. Much to my surprise, she isn’t Astrean, or at least not completely. She has the same tan skin and dark eyes, but hers are hooded. Her heart-shaped face is sharply angled with high, freckled cheekbones, and her mouth is small and round. Since I know Dragonsbane is Astrean, I would have to assume that Artemisia’s father is from somewhere in the East, though I haven’t met enough people from those lands to hazard a more specific guess.