ONCE, when I was eight, it rained in the Silver City. The heavens cracked open, and a deluge of water fell from the sky for a whole day. The streets flooded, and buildings that had stood for generations washed away. No one had ever seen such a blanket of clouds blotting out the suns. And for the first and only time in my life, I had known what it was to be cold.

I wasn’t cold now. This was something else entirely, and it was unbearable. My bones were made of ice. They promised to shatter if I dared to move, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop shivering. Locked in darkness, I could see nothing at all. There were sounds in this icy prison, though. Voices. Sometimes many. Sometimes just one. I began to recognize them as time passed. I heard the female voice the most. She spoke to me, talking softly, telling me secrets. She sang to me as well. Her voice was soft and sweet and made me miss my mother in a way that caused me to ache inside. I couldn’t understand the things she sang about. Her words were a mystery, the language she spoke unfamiliar and strange.

I lay in the darkness and shivered, wishing that she would fuck off. I didn’t want to be haunted by these ghosts. I wanted to slip into the nothingness, until the cold froze me over, and the silence blocked my ears, and I became nothing and forgot that I had ever lived.

Instead, the tips of my fingers came back to me. Then my toes. My arms and legs followed. Gradually, over a span of time that could have been an hour but just as easily a week, my body returned bit by bit. The pain made me wish I’d been better in life. This had to be a punishment. My ribs threatened to crack with every breath I drew—and I was breathing

somehow. My insides felt as if they had been torn out of my body, shredded to pieces, and then stuffed back inside me. Everything hurt, every second of every minute, of every hour…

I prayed for an oblivion that refused to come. And then, out of nowhere, I opened my eyes, and the darkness was gone.

The bed I was lying in didn’t belong to me. The only feather mattress I’d ever slept on in my whole life was Carrion Swift’s, and this bed didn’t belong to that asshole, either. This bed was far bigger, for starters, and it didn’t smell like muskrat. A set of immaculate white sheets covered my body, on top of which lay a thick, woolen blanket. High overhead, the ceiling was not the pale golden color of sandstone. It was mostly white, but…no. It wasn’t white. It was a pale, washed-out blue, and there were streaks and dabs of dove-grey sporadically daubed here and there, forming clouds. It was beautifully done. The walls of the room were a darker shade of blue, bordering on violet.

As soon as I marked the color, along with not one but five different paintings, displayed in heavy gilt frames mounted on the walls, the plush- looking couch in the corner of the room, and the shelf opposite the bed, loaded up with more books than I’d ever seen in one place at any one time, a sinking dread sank its claws into me.

I was still in the palace. Where else could I be? No one in the Third could possibly have scrounged together the type of money it would cost to create the dye for violet paint. Not to mention the only artworks I’d ever seen were faded pictures in books, but these were real. Oil paint on canvas, with real wooden frames.

I let out a panicked breath, my alarm rising in magnitude when I saw the cloud of fog form on my breath. Where was I, and what the five hells was happening? Why could I see my breath?

I tried to move, but my body wouldn’t comply. Not even the smallest twitch. I might as well have been paralyzed. If I could swing my legs out of

—ah, ah, no. No, no. No. That wasn’t going to work. I—

I froze as the door to the opulent room opened. My eyes were already open. It was pointless closing them now, when I’d already been caught awake. I was too anxious to look at whoever had entered the room, so I remained perfectly still, staring up at the clouds painted on the ceiling, holding my breath.

“Master Eskin said you’d wake up today,” a female voice said. The same voice that had sung to me. That had reached out to me in the dark. “And here I was, doubting him. I should know better by now.” The woman, whoever she was, laughed softly.

Was she one of Madra’s lady’s maids? Was she going to gut me the moment I stopped playing dead and looked at her? Common sense rejected both of these possibilities. A lady’s maid wouldn’t be so chatty. And why would they have gone to the effort of keeping me alive if they only planned on murdering me?

I slowly moved my head, turning to inspect this newcomer.

She leaned against the wall by the door, holding a stack of dusty books. Her hair was the lightest blonde, so long it reached well past her waist, tamed into two elaborate braids, each as thick as my wrist. She could only be, what, twenty-four? Twenty-five? Around the same age as me. Her skin was pale, her eyes a vivid shade of green.

The hunter-green dress she wore was a work of art. Brocaded, the bodice was embroidered with golden thread that shimmered when it caught the light. The full skirt was decorated with embroidered leaves. The stranger grinned at me, still clutching hold of her books. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

The urge to cough hit me out of nowhere. I did my best to answer her question, but I couldn’t help it. I started to sputter, a spiderweb of pain spreading up my sides as my body jerked.

“Oh, no. Wait. Here, let me help you,” the girl said. She rushed into the room, set her pile of books down on a small table by the window, then picked up a cup and brought it to the bed. Holding it out, she beamed, offering it to me. “There. Down in one. Eskin said you’d be parched when you came around.”

I shrank back into the bed, tucking my arms in tight against my body, eyeing her warily. “What is that?”

“Nothing. Just water, I promise.”

Nothing? I took the cup, peering over its rim, feeling lightheaded. She wasn’t lying. The receptacle was full to the brim with water. Four days’ worth. I’d spend a month trying to get out from underneath the debt this amount of water would put me in down in the Third. And she was just…handing it to me?

“Go on.” She smiled uncertainly. “Drink. I’ll refill it for you when you’re done.”

She was toying with me. Well, more fool her. I held the cup to my lips and started to drink, swallowing as quickly as I could. The water was cold

—so cold that it made my throat ache. It hurt to drink it so quickly, but I wasn’t giving her a moment to change her mind. By the time she realized that I wasn’t entitled to a ration this big, the water would be gone, and there wouldn’t be any way for her to get it back.

Gods, it was clean. Clean water. It almost tasted sweet.

“Whoa, now,” the girl said. “Slowly does it. You’ll make yourself sick if you’re not…careful.”

I’d already finished, though. I handed her back the cup, expecting her to hold out a hand for payment now that I’d drained it dry. But she just smiled and returned to the table by the window, where she refilled the cup from a tall copper pitcher. I eyed her suspiciously when she came back and gave me the full cup again, wondering if she was mad.

“I’m Everlayne. I’ve been visiting you,” she said. “I know.”

She glanced down at the cup, nodding to it. “It’s okay. You can drink that, too, if you’re thirsty.”

I sipped the water this time, watching, waiting for her to pull a dagger from her voluminous skirts and pounce.

“Since I told you my name, maybe you could tell me yours?” She canted her head to one side. “Gods, actually, do you mind if I pull up a chair? I’ve been climbing up and down the stairs all day, and I forgot to eat this morning.”

“Sure?”

She—Everlayne—grinned as she snagged a simple wooden chair and dragged it to the bedside. As soon as she had the chair positioned to her liking, she sat down heavily in it, tucking rogue strands of hair behind her ears. “All right. There. I’m ready. What are you, then? A Marika? An Angelica?” Her eyes, bright as jade, flashed as she spoke. “I’m not a very patient person,” she admitted in a confessional tone. “I’ve been calling you Liss for the past ten days. That seemed as good a name as any, but…” She slowed, the light in her eyes dimming as she took in the look on my face. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Your ears,” I whispered. I’d been staring at them ever since she’d tucked her loose strands of hair behind them. They were…

I swallowed hard. Took a deep breath. They were pointed.

Everlayne touched her finger to the tips of her ears, frowning softly. Her expression went blank when she realized what I was referring to. “Ahh. Right. They aren’t the same as yours, no.”

The Fae were warmongers. Cannibals. Beastly creatures with no temperance, sense of morality, nor any notion of mercy. The eldest Immortals visited their wrath upon the land with an iron fist, leaving a path of chaos and destruction in their wake. The seven cities rejoiced when—

“It’s upset you. My appearance,” Everlayne said quietly. She placed her hands in her lap, all of her effervescence quickly fallen flat. “You’ve heard of my kind?” she asked.

“Yes.” Was this really happening, or was this some kind of sick joke? Was Hayden teasing me? Getting me back for being so cruel to him the last time I saw him? This would be a fine way of getting revenge, making me doubt my sanity, but…

I’d left my brother in the street outside The Mirage. I’d gone with Captain Harron. I’d met the Queen, and she’d ordered my execution, along with the execution of my friends, family, and every other living soul in the Third.

Death had come for me, with wavy black hair and wicked green eyes. He’d carried me away from that place.

He had brought me here.

A wave of heat swept over me, making my mouth sweat. I hadn’t paid much attention, dying as I’d been at the time, but when the dark-haired stranger had picked me up, the tips of his ears had been strangely shaped, too. And his canines…

“Show me your teeth.” The demand slipped out before I could reel it back.

The woman in the green gown clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening. “What? No!” she exclaimed behind her palm. “Absolutely not! That’s—that’s so rude!”

“I’m sorry. But…you’re Fae?”

The statement sounded like the punchline to a bad joke, but Everlayne wasn’t laughing. “I am,” she answered, still hiding her mouth.

“But…you’re not real.”

“I beg to differ,” she fired back.

“Myths. Stories. The Fae are folklore. There’s no such thing as the Fae.” “Don’t I seem real to you?”

“I suppose so. But…the Fae had wings.”

Everlayne snorted. “We haven’t had those for thousands of years.” She dropped her hand, huffing a little as she pointed to the cup of water I was still holding. “Look. You have a concussion. Finish that and see if you feel any better. Things might feel a little backward for a while.”

My disbelief had nothing to do with the lump on the back of my head. You didn’t just forget an entire race of people because you hit your head too hard. The Fae were not real. I squirmed, trying to prop myself up a little better, still scrutinizing Everlayne’s ears. “My mother told me stories about the Fae when I was little,” I said. “The Fae visited the shores of our land, bringing with them war, disease, and death—”

A look of indigence stole across Everlayne’s pretty features. “Excuse me, but the Fae are not diseased. We haven’t been afflicted by blight of any kind in a millennium. Humans, on the other hand, are riddled with all sorts of germs. You fall sick and die at the drop of a hat.”

I’d offended her. Again. That was twice in the space of a minute. As far as first meetings went, I wasn’t doing a stellar job of making a good impression here. Taking a steadying breath, I tried to formulate a question that wouldn’t come across as rude, but Everlayne huffed, speaking before I could.

“You’re telling me that the Fae have become a bedtime story meant to scare children in Zilvaren?”

“Yes!”

“What else do they say about us?”

“I—I don’t know. I can’t remember right now.” I remembered plenty, but none of it was very flattering. I had no desire to offend her again by telling her that Zilvaren mothers warned their children that a Fae hag would come and eat them in the night if they didn’t behave themselves.

Everlayne frowned, peering at the side of my head. “Hmm. How’s your short-term memory? What’s the last thing you can remember?”

“Oh. I was in the palace. Madra’s captain was trying to kill me. I…stopped his dagger somehow, and grabbed hold of a sword. Then the floor turned to molten silver. A big pool of it. And…something came out of it.”

“Something? Or someone?” “A man,” I whispered.

But Everlayne shook her head. “A male. He came because the sword called to him…” She trailed off, throwing her hands in the air. “Gods, I still don’t know your name. Unless you don’t have a name.”

“Of course I have a name,” I said. “It’s Saeris.” I could count on one hand the amount of people I’d given my real name to when prompted. But for some reason, lying to her seemed wrong. I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious for, but Everlayne had visited me. Talked to me. Watched over me, and sung to me, and kept me company. Those weren’t the actions of a being who wanted to cause me harm.

Everlayne’s eyebrow arched knowingly. “Ahh. Saeris. A pretty name. A Fae name. How are you feeling? You’re sore, I bet, but you must be feeling a lot better than when you first arrived.”

“I feel…” How did I feel? The last time I’d checked, I had a monstrous hole in my stomach and a dagger sticking out of my shoulder, not to mention that I’d lost near every last drop of blood in my body. With stiff arms, I slowly lifted the blanket covering me and surveyed the damage beneath. There wasn’t much to see. I was wearing some type of tunic—pale green and made of soft, buttery material. I patted my stomach, feeling for the gaping wound through the fabric, but there was nothing. My stomach felt smooth. There wasn’t even any pain.

“Our healers are extremely talented. Though, it’s been some time since they worked on a human with such catastrophic injuries,” she admitted. “They decided to keep you sedated while your internal organs repaired. I argued to wake you up as soon as you were officially whole again, but Eskin said you needed another couple of days for your mind to calm after the trauma you’d experienced.”

“Wait. So I’m not going to die?”

Everlayne chuckled, shaking her head. “No. Eskin’s success rate is a point of pride for him these days. He hasn’t lost a patient in nearly two centuries.”

Two centuries? The songs our mother sang to Hayden and me when we were tiny always spoke of the Fae’s unnatural life spans. I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that Everlayne was Fae, though. Did I believe it? Was my mind even capable of accepting that as the truth? It just wasn’t possible.

“I take it…we’re not in the Silver City, then,” I said slowly. She smiled. “We’re not.”

My stomach rolled. “Then where are we?”

“Yvelia.” She beamed, as though her one-word answer explained my entire situation.

“And…where is that?”

“Yvelia! More specifically, the Winter Palace. Didn’t your mother’s bedtime stories tell you anyth—”

The door crashed open.

Cold light flooded in from the hallway beyond, and a monster clad in leather armor prowled into the room, eliciting a gasp out of Everlayne. His eyes were the darkest brown, his fair skin splattered with what looked like mud. His sandy brown hair hung past his shoulders, the top part sectioned and tied back into a war braid. He was frighteningly tall, his bare, muscular forearms covered in intricate, interwoven tattoos that blurred as my eyes tried to focus on them. The murderous look on his face softened somewhat when he saw Everlayne.

Everlayne, however, had turned purple. “Renfis! What in all five hells!

You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Chagrinned, he hung his head. And there they were: another set of pointed ears. This time, they were tipped red with embarrassment. “Layne,” the male said. His voice was lightly accented, the words lilting, though made harsh by his deep register. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were in here.”

“Clearly. You nearly ripped the damned door off its hinges. It’s polite to knock before you hurl yourself into a room.”

The male—Renfis—glanced briefly in my direction, eyes shifting over me where I lay in the bed, before returning his attention to Everlayne. “Right. Sorry. Manners have never been my strong suit. Irrín’s destroyed what little etiquette I had to begin with.”

Everlayne’s mouth twitched. Was she trying not to smile? “Why are you bursting in here, anyway?” she asked.

“I came to find the human.” Renfis’s eyes darted to me again. “He needs his chain back.”

“His chain? Oh!” Everlayne’s frown mirrored my own, but hers disappeared a split second after it formed. She’d obviously worked out what Renfis was referring to while I was still in the dark. Turning to me, she looked at the hollow of my throat, her lips drawing into a small pout. “She might still need it,” she said.

I raised my hand to my throat. The second my fingertips found the cool metal resting against my skin there, I remembered. Death, dressed in midnight, taking a chain from his neck and looping it around mine. Death, scooping me up into his arms. The look of disappointment in his eyes. Death—

“Believe me. He needs it more than she does right now,” Renfis said darkly.

Suddenly, the chain felt like a noose around my neck. What the hell was it? And why had the male who had carried me away from Madra’s palace put it on me?

Everlayne got to her feet. “It’s only been ten days. He shouldn’t be affected yet, surely?”

“He’s struggling,” the warrior said awkwardly. “He shouldn’t have been without it at all. It gets worse every time he takes it off. If your father finds out he’s even here—”

“I know, I know. Gods. I want to see him, Ren. This is getting ridiculous.”

Renfis looked at his boots. “He wasn’t in any fit state. Still isn’t. The best thing you can do for him right now is help me get the pendant back to him.”

The set of Everlayne’s shoulders was stiff. The two of them traded a tense look, but she dipped her head and sighed. Turning to me, she said, “All right. Fine. Saeris, I hate to ask, but the chain you’re wearing around your neck…”

I was already fumbling with the clasp, trying to get the damned thing off. If the savage who owned the necklace wanted it back, I wouldn’t give him a reason to come and get it himself. A cold shiver shot through me as I finally managed to unfasten the chain and offered it out to Everlayne.

I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was something dangling from the necklace—a small silver disc. A family crest, perhaps? The disc was

engraved with tiny markings, but I’d be damned if I was going to study it up close. Now that it wasn’t hanging around my neck anymore, the chain felt like it was humming. The strangest energy fired up and down my arm, not painful but certainly not a pleasant sensation. And it was cold. So cold. By the time Renfis strode across the room and stopped by the bed, holding out a small, black velvet pouch, the chain might as well have been made of ice.

“Drop it inside,” Renfis said. He held the mouth of the pouch open, very careful not to let the chain touch his skin while I did as he’d bade me. As soon as the chain had disappeared inside, the warrior pulled a tie on either side of the pouch, cinching it shut. Without another word, he spun away and made for the door.

“I want to see him before he goes, at least,” Everlayne called after Renfis. “There are things I need to ask him.”

Renfis paused, his massive frame filling the doorway. “He has to leave, Layne. I’ve kept him hidden this long by luck alone. The guards are starting to get suspicious. If they find out he’s here…”

Everlayne looked down at her feet. “Yes, you’re right.”

“He’s needed back in Cahlish, anyway. Write to him if you have to. Visit in a month or two. But having him stay here a moment longer than necessary would be,”—He chose his last words carefully—”…ill-advised.”

Everlayne had gone pale, but she didn’t fight him. “Okay, I’ll write. Tell him he’d better write back, or there’ll be trouble.”

Renfis bowed his head. “It was good to see you,” he murmured. And then he was gone. With him, he took the tension that had flooded the room when I’d removed the necklace, and for that I was eternally grateful. Everlayne didn’t relax the way I did, though. Her eyes shone bright with the beginnings of tears as she put her back to the door and said in a forcefully cheery voice, “All right, then. I expect you’ll be wanting to have a bath.”

“A bath?”

“Yes. It’s been at least ten days since you’ve had a proper soak. Come on. I’ll draw some hot water for you. It’ll make you feel a million times better, I swear.”

Hot water? A whole tub full of it. For me to wash myself in. The waste of so much water would have stricken me dumb on any other day, but today there were far stranger things to concern myself with. And besides, I was too focused on something both Renfis and Everlayne had said.

Ten days. That’s how long I’d been unconscious for, lying in this bed, recovering in peace, while my brother was back in Zilvaren, potentially fighting for his life.

“I don’t need a bath,” I said. “I need to go home. My little brother needs me.”

Whatever Everlayne was about to say died on her lips. Slowly, in increments, her smile faded. “I’m sorry, Saeris, but that isn’t going to happen.”

“What do you mean? I have to go back. I don’t have a choice. Madra’s planning on wiping out my entire ward. I have family back there. Friends.” I ignored the small voice in the back of my head, whispering that it was already probably too late. Madra would have been furious when she discovered what had happened in that hall. Scratch that. Furious wouldn’t have even come close. Not only did I not die, but I’d somehow liquified Harron’s dagger, it had attacked him, and I’d—I’d—fuck, I didn’t even know what I’d done with that sword. I’d drawn it from somewhere I shouldn’t have and summoned the devil himself. Harron was probably dead. Madra was not a merciful monarch. Her vengeance would have been swift and horrific. Odds were that the Third had already been reduced to a crater in the sand, but I still had to get back there. If there was even the slimmest chance that she’d temporarily stayed her hand, I had to try and stop her. It was the least I could do.

Everlayne did look sympathetic as she headed slowly toward the door. But she also looked resigned. “I’m not going to lie to you. Some of the tales your mother used to tell you were true. My people can be ruthless and cruel at times. There are those of us who endeavor to be different, but…occasionally there’s simply no other option. We’ve been waiting to retrieve that sword you drew for a very long time. But to have found you along with it…” She shook her head. “You have no idea how important you are, Saeris. I’m afraid my father isn’t liable to give you up any time soon. And he wants to see you in an hour, so unfortunately, the bath isn’t up for debate.”

“You can’t keep me trapped here. This is kidnapping. It’s inhumane behavior!”

Everlayne at least had the decency to look contrite. “It’s inhuman behavior. But we aren’t human, Saeris. We’re Fae. We don’t behave like you. Don’t think like you. We don’t operate by the same moral guidelines

that some of your kind do, either. The faster you remember that the easier this will be,” she said a little more gently. “Now, please. Bathe before the water gets cold. When you speak to my father, you can ask him about returning to your Silver City.”

“And who the hell is your father to tell me if I get to go home?” My anger echoed loudly up and down the hallway. Both guards, who stood in stern silence, flinched, looking deeply uncomfortable.

“He is Belikon De Barra,” Everlayne said evenly. “King of the Yvelian Fae.”

I sobbed while I soaked in the copper tub. I had an inconceivable resource at my disposal and no way to share it with the people I loved. If Hayden and Elroy were alive, then they were dizzy with their thirst, just as they had every day of their lives. Meanwhile, I was luxuriating in so much water that I could drown in it. It was black with dirt, and a film of scum bobbed on its surface when I was done scrubbing my skin until it was pink

—probably the cleanest I had ever been. I’d never washed my hair properly before, nor had access to shampoo, and I used way too much, not expecting the amount I scooped into my palm to produce so many suds. It took forever to first work it through all of my tangles and knots, and then another age to rinse out all of the soap. Everlayne was prowling back and forth outside the room like a caged hellcat by the time I told her that I was done.

She looked harried when she bustled back into the room. “We don’t have time to deliberate over what you should wear now. We’ll have to get you laced into the first thing that fits and worry about style another time.”

“Laced? What are you talking about?”

“Your dress!” Everlayne made a beeline for the large, dark wood wardrobe, throwing open the doors. “With that dark hair and your eyes such a lovely shade of blue, I think we should stick to royal blue, or maybe…” The top half of her body disappeared into the wardrobe. When she emerged again, she clutched a staggering amount of cobalt fabric in her arms. I backed away as soon as I saw it.

“No. No, I’m not—I don’t do dresses, Everlayne.”

“What do you mean?” She looked genuinely confused.

“I wear pants. Shirts. Things I can move easily in. So I can run, and climb, and—” Kill people.

“You’re not wearing a shirt and pants to meet the King, Saeris. He’ll see it as a slight. If you’re not well turned out, he’ll have you thrown into the cells.”

Hah. Another day, another monarch throwing my ass in jail. Honestly, a cell was what I deserved. After stealing the gauntlet and landing my entire ward in such trouble, I didn’t deserve to see the light of day again. I was numb as I let Everlayne shake me into the dress. Gown was a more appropriate name for it, really.

“You look like a dream,” Everlayne announced when she was done jiggling and poking me, tugging on corset stays so hard that I thought I might pass out.

“And yet I feel like I’m trapped in a nightmare,” I added dryly.

She tutted. “Turn around and sit down on that chair. I need to deal with your hair next.”

“What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Well, hmm. How do I put this delicately? It looks like it’s had a family of field mice living in it for a couple of years. And I’m betting it’s been a while since it’s seen a brush. So…”

“It doesn’t need brushing if I just tie it back into a braid.” I wasn’t stung by the criticism. Seriously, I wasn’t.

Everlayne laughed quietly—did she think I couldn’t hear her chuckling? I slumped down on the chair where she’d told me to sit, fuming under my breath as the female wrestled with my knots. She was loving this, wasn’t she? A little prisoner of her own. A doll to play dress up with. But I wasn’t a toy or a pet. She’d learn that the hard way if she treated me like one.

“You have beautiful hair,” she said, running a wide-toothed comb through the strands. I winced as she swept it back over my shoulders. “It’ll grow well here. Long hair is a sign of high-born status for Fae women. Others will be jealous of your dark coloring, too. Dark hair is a royal trait amongst the Yvelian Fae.”

I didn’t give two shits about Fae fads or trends. I didn’t care whether Fae women were jealous of how I looked or if they thought I was a hideous monster. Up until four hours ago, I didn’t even know they existed. I sat very still as Everlayne braided my hair with nimble fingers, biting the tip of my

tongue. Once she was finished, she ushered me in front of a full-length mirror hanging on the wall in a scrolled and gilded frame, glowing with pride as she showed me her handiwork.

I’d made plenty of mirrors in the workshop with Elroy, but I’d personally never had much use for them. I knew what I looked like well enough. Yes, I had a pretty face, but pretty faces were used as currency in the Third when a girl ran out of coin or water to trade with, and that was more of a blessing than a curse. Masks and scarves were my friends. No one knew what you looked like behind a piece of sand-blasted sacking, and therefore had no reason to try and take your goods for themselves.

There were no masks or scarves to hide behind here.

While it was true that I paled in comparison next to Everlayne’s beauty

—the female was radiant. Perfect in every way—the color of the ridiculous dress she picked out for me did complement my complexion as she’d said it would. It drew attention to my eyes and made them pop. And the magic she’d worked on my hair? The elaborate braided crown she’d fashioned for me was stunning. My hair had never looked so healthy.

“You don’t need any blush,” Everlayne’s reflection said in the mirror. “You’re rosy enough. Though…here.” She hurried away for a second and then returned holding a small pot. She removed the pot’s lid and offered it to me. “Your lips were so cracked when you arrived. I’ve been applying this for you every few hours, but now that you’re awake, you can do it for yourself. Here, like this.” She swept her fingertip across the thick, waxy resin inside and rubbed it across her lips.

I stuck my finger in the pot and did the same, if only to shut her up.

She looked desperately pleased with the results. “Wonderful. All right, then. I’d say we were ready. Brace yourself. It’s time to meet the king.”