Daemon’s eyes widened in alarm. “We need to get inside the castle, now. Hana can see us even if we’re invisible because you have the same ryuu talent, right? She’ll kill us.”

Sora bit her lip so hard it split open. “Wh-what if we could convince her to abandon Prince Gin?”

“And fight on what might be the losing side, just because it’s right?” Daemon asked. “Sora, you already tried that, and Hana rejected you. I know you’re hurting, but we can’t save her right now. If you confront Hana, it’s the end of both you and our hopes of saving Kichona.”

“I don’t want that to be true.”

“But it is. I’m sorry. We need to move.” He pointed up to the third floor of the tower near them. “I think we can get in through that open window. We have to climb, fast, before the ryuu head this way.”

Sora glanced with longing at the bend in the castle perimeter, as if she could just will Hana to shift allegiances from around the corner. But Daemon was right. Sora had already attempted that, and it had backfired.

Daemon was already halfway up the wall with a gecko spell when he looked back down at her. “Sora! Come on!” He shot a sharp arrow of alarm through their bond, and it pierced through the fog of her regret, jolting her to action.

She followed him up the wall and swung herself in through the window frame, landing on the floor without a sound. Just in time, too, because the ryuu turned the corner where she had just been. Sora let out a long exhale.

Daemon looked around the room, perplexed. “It’s completely empty in here.”

“The castle is only a few days old,” Sora said. It was probably too much to ask that it already be furnished.

With Hana left behind, Sora forced herself to get back to her job. She tiptoed to the door and pressed her ear against it. It was quiet on the other side, so she pushed it open a crack and slipped through.

Here, there were torches. The tower was narrow, and the center was mostly a spiral staircase with only a room or two on each level. The walls were made of black stone streaked with crimson, and the flickering of the torch flames made the red look like pulsing veins full of blood.

She and Daemon poked into the room opposite. Again, no one there.

“If you were the Dragon Prince, where would you stash a usurped empress?” Sora asked.

“Nowhere as obvious as a tower,” Daemon said.

“My thinking as well.”

They trod carefully down the stairs. The ground floor connected the tower with the rest of the castle. Sora and Daemon hurried along the corridor.