Ever since my arrest, Nolan has been trying his best to get back into Nia’s good graces, but she is still giving him the cold shoulder.

Nolan is only doing his job. There’s no telling what his fate would have been if he’d defied Ronan. For all we know, he might’ve ended up standing next to me in that court today.

A kind-faced young man with peach-fuzz dusting his jaw trudges into view, torchlight flickering off his black leather armor. He looks at me in stolen glances, his cheeks coloring with splotches of pink every time I catch him. “You have a visitor,” he says, fumbling for the keys at his belt.

Nia steps into view and slips through the door, her head bowed and eyes red from tears. The door closes quietly behind her, but the sound of the key in the lock cuts through the silence.

My cousin and I stare at each other, her gaze scanning as if searching for any signs of mistreatment. If not for the bars and guards, this place could be mistaken for an inn.

“I’d offer you tea, but I’m afraid all I have is water and a stale scone.” They delivered my breakfast hours ago, when the sun was barely kissing the horizon. I was too nervous for my trial to eat. Now that my fate has been marked, I’m too despondent.

Nia’s lips pinch, her curls swinging as she steps forward. “How can you make a joke at a time like this?”

Because come tomorrow, there will be no time for jokes.

There will be no time for anything.

When she pushes back her cloak, I notice she’s strangling a book. “What have you brought?”

She captures my hand, leading me to the bed where she sinks onto the mattress. I fall down beside her, waiting as she sets the tome on top of the blanket and flips through the pages to one marked with a strip of ribbon.

“I went to the library,” she says, pressing a finger to one of the lines midway down the page. “Read this.”

The section in question speaks to the succession of the throne of Willowhaven. Apparently, if Ronan and his mother were to both fall, the crown would pass to the eldest male cousin. If there are no cousins, then the high chancellor—the king’s head advisor—would be crowned king and his line would continue to hold the throne until such a time that there are no heirs, and the same thing would happen.

All very interesting, but hardly helpful at present. “I don’t understand.”