Isabel scanned the rows of names as if each were another wrong to add to her carefully tallied scale. The queen ruled with cold, impersonal order, an endless stream of paperwork and reports and written law. After she signed the armistice, she shut down the royal palace and secluded herself within the North Tower. It rose far above the smog and squalor of Knockaine—far above the lives of the people she swore to serve. Her opponents called her the Paper Queen, too embittered to deal with anyone except in writing.

To her country, Isabel was something of a joke. A failure. It was, after all, the birthright of the Danubian queens to reclaim the land Vesria had stolen.

Three hundred years ago, Vesrian raiders had poured into the River Muri, wreathed in black smoke and carrying the banner of their death god. His people, eager to please him, built their empire on conquest. In the turn of a moon, they took Danu. Tore down the temples of the Goddess, ripped the royal family from the palace. Occupation lasted for nearly a decade, until the exiled Queen Maeve rallied her armies and drove the Vesrians back over the mountains.

Whatever is done unto you, she’d said, a decree from the Goddess herself, let it be repaid thrice over. Blood for blood, sorrow for sorrow. And so she burned all the Vesrians’ shrines. Banned their language. Forced everyone within Danu’s newly established borders to convert or face execution.

Although war had ravaged their nations in fits and starts ever since, Vesria still held a quarter of what was once Danu’s land. Parliament, fearful for the nation’s draining coffers and declining birth rate, had forced Isabel to broker the armistice last year. But popular sentiment held that she was a weak queen, ready to abandon their land and strand generations of Danu-Vesrians who deserved to come home. If it would keep her from being remembered as a failure, Isabel would never rest until she’d exacted her threefold vengeance.

“Wren,” Isabel said flatly. Then, with tenderness, “Una.”

How many times had Wren longed to hear Isabel say her name like that? By now, swallowing her jealousy was automatic. Nothing she did would earn her aunt’s affection. Isabel loved Una for her devotion and her ruthlessness about as much as she hated Wren for being a stain on the Southerland line. Once, Wren had dreamed of making her into the mother she’d never had. She wasn’t so naïve anymore. Now, Isabel’s approval mattered only insofar as it guaranteed the security of her position.

It didn’t mean the rejection didn’t still sting.

“So you let the boy escape.” Isabel’s voice was as quavering and soft as a wind chime. Wren had to lean in to hear and hang on her every word.

Una rested a fist over her heart in grim salute. “It was my fault, Your Majesty. I underestimated our target.”