“Well met, Lady Crier,” said the Designer.

She was startled by the press of two fingers on the underside of her chin. Nobody else would dare to touch her. “Well met,” she murmured, looking up at him. She didn’t know how old he was—it was hard to tell with her Kind—but his face was beginning to show the signs of age. His tan skin looked thin as parchment across his bones; his eyes were not as clear as her own; his dark hair was streaked with silver. He wore the white uniform of the Designers. The white robes, lined with softest lambskin, that marked him as the officiant of Crier’s wedding.

“Lady Crier,” said the Designer in his papery voice, “you seem frightened.”

She didn’t respond.

“Tell me your fears,” he said. “Tell me your doubts.”

“There are so many,” she whispered, ashamed. “I—I sometimes wonder if this is the right choice. My betrothed, he . . .” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. She didn’t know who she could trust. Kinok had eyes and ears everywhere.

“Doubt is normal,” said the Designer. “Indecision is so common in the young. But this is the right choice, Lady Crier, because it is the only choice. You cannot change it now.”

Her brow furrowed. She blinked up at him, confused. “The only choice?”

“This is what you were created for, Lady Crier,” said the Designer, cupping her face in his hands. His palms were cool and dry. “This is your Design: to be bonded. It is never wise to defy your own Design, Lady Crier. Others have made that mistake. The young, the doubtful. But the nature of our Kind is that we are not so irreplaceable, in the end. If one offspring fails, another can take its place.”

“What are you saying?” Crier breathed. She felt on the edge of something, some blinding, white-hot horror. “Another can . . . ?”

“Take your place,” said the Designer, brushing his thumb across her cheekbone as if wiping away tears, though she knew for a fact she was not crying. “Do not forget, Lady Crier. You were Made, and you can be unmade, and another remade in your image. Do not force your father’s hand, Lady Crier. He created you to fulfill a certain purpose. If you reject that purpose . . .”

He might have continued, but Crier wasn’t listening. She knelt there on the cold flagstones, letting this new knowledge sweep through her. My father wouldn’t hurt me, she told herself. I’m his daughter. He wouldn’t hurt me, even if I refuse the bonding.

Would he?

But the Designer’s message had been clear—obey, or else.

Crier wanted more than anything to run away. But where would she go? In Rabu, she was in danger of being recognized. She could try to make it to Varn, to the queen’s palace in Thalen—after all, as far as Queen Junn knew, Crier was still her ally and confidante—but Queen Junn had killed Reyka. She’d killed Reyka. The idea of facing her, playing nice in her court, made Crier sick.