“You ought to lie down. You barely slept last night,” Eti said in the same kind tone Ariel had used with her since the day her father introduced them. The Orfelian was so unlike the king’s past palace guests, the brightest subjects in Maynara. Loyal and talented they might have been, but Laya had warned Eti they sought only to improve their station. According to her sister, they saw Eti as a pea-brained little girl, easy to cajole with sugary treats and empty promises. Ariel, on the other hand, never asked a single favor of Eti.

From where Eti stood, she could make out the sharp edges of precioso lining Ariel’s pockets. He’d smuggled it out of the palace the night they’d escaped. Eti understood little about the drug apart from the fact that it was the true reason Ariel was in Maynara⁠—and, should the precioso fall into the wrong hands, it would doom the entire kingdom to a ghastly fate.

She noticed then that Ariel was holding one of the crystal pieces in his fist. Sunlight winked off the glassy tip, which stuck out over his knuckles. He’d told her that precioso had cursed the people back in Orfelia, burrowing itself deep inside their minds, enslaving them. As curious as she was about the precioso, she didn’t ask to see it. There was something about the drug’s spotless, manufactured beauty that didn’t sit well with Eti⁠—a magic not even the mightiest Gatdula could wield. She reached instead for the liquor bottle’s narrow stem. That jolted Ariel out of the fog that had settled over him. He batted Eti’s hands away with a frown.

“Hey,” he said, chiding her for the first time. “You may be a princess, but you’re not of drinking age.”

Eti raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Do you have to be a certain age to drink, where you’re from?”

“Yes. In most places, actually.” Ariel raised the bottle and took another sip. Eti waited patiently for him to offer her one, but he never did. When her surprise morphed into mild annoyance, the corners of his mouth quirked up into an amused grin. “You look so much like your sister when I offend you.”

Eti had two sisters, but Ariel could only be referring to one of them.

“Why? Do you often offend Laya?” Eti asked, and a faint flush crept across Ariel’s cheeks. Clearly, the sound of Laya’s name fazed him. Eti took the opportunity to pluck the liquor bottle from his grip. “I turn thirteen in a few weeks,” she said as he opened his mouth to protest. “That is old enough to drink in Maynara.”

“Only a sip,” he cautioned. “One of us must keep their wits about them.”