“Don’t touch him!” Nomi screamed hoarsely, as she’d screamed a dozen times during the crossing, praying with every shout that they’d listen, that they’d notice his chest rising and falling. Asa had ordered them to throw Malachi overboard when he stopped breathing.

But he hadn’t stopped.

“They said to throw him over when he died,” one of the sailors was saying, the deep rumble of his voice barely audible over the constant thrust of the steam engine. “But he ain’t dead yet and we’re almost there.”

“The prison don’t know about our orders.” The other sailor scratched his stubbled chin. “Less questions if we get rid of him now.”

Nomi shouted again, but they ignored her.

“It’s too late,” Maris said, her dead-white cheeks whipped by her hair and her dead-dark eyes burning. At some point, they’d both lost their masks from the masquerade ball. Nomi couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt the pinch of the stiff fabric across her nose. She couldn’t believe the Heir’s ball had been only hours ago. Only hours since she’d told her brother, Renzo, to run instead of help her frame Malachi. She’d known by then that Asa wasn’t to be trusted, but she’d had no sense of what he was capable of. She did now. She hoped Renzo had listened. She was certain Asa would kill him if he found him.

The sailors heaved the Heir to their shoulders. Malachi coughed weakly—“Can’t you see he’s still alive!” Nomi yelled—and his eyelids fluttered and opened, and he was awake and sputtering, and then he disappeared overboard.

Her chains clanked as she yanked herself toward the sailors, straining against the shackles. The skin at her wrists tore and bled. “You killed him!” she screamed, over and over. The sailors ignored her, and maybe they should have. She didn’t know if she was speaking to them or herself.

You killed him.

This was her fault. She’d trusted the wrong brother. Asa had promised freedom, for Nomi and her sister. He’d promised an end to the Graces, a change to the laws of Viridia. He’d said he would let women have rights, let them read… he’d told her exactly what she wanted to hear. And she’d fallen under his spell. It had been easy, too easy to believe Malachi was as cruel and volatile as his father… because Asa had convinced her. But it had all been a lie. Asa was the cruel one.

The murderous one.

Malachi’s words haunted her. I’ve no desire for an unwilling Grace. I will force you no longer. It was one of the last things he had said to Nomi, releasing her from her obligation. He wouldn’t force her to be a Grace.

And now he was dead.