“Until they thought I killed my own mentor. And now they hate me.”

“They’re scared of you,” Ai Ling corrected. “Which is way more useful. People can’t love someone they don’t respect. And, well—fear’s a step in the right direction.”

“Ai Ling,” Sanjeet muttered, his Hallow no doubt sensing the anxiety spike in my bloodstream. “Thérèse . . . can I speak to Tar alone, please?”

My council sisters glanced between me and Sanjeet, exchanged a coy look of wiggled eyebrows, and disappeared downstairs without a word.

Once alone, I drank him in, lingering on the curve of his ears, the slant of his eyebrows. I’d never scold my council siblings for illegal romances again—I was the biggest lawbreaker of them all. He smiled at me, tea-colored eyes resigned with exhaustion, and opened his arms. I pressed my ear to his armored chest, sending Dayo’s Ray in tendrils over his earth-scented skin.

“I’d rather not Ray-speak,” he said, consonants plosive with that deep, Dhyrmish accent that reminded me of a talking drum. He gave a rumbling chuckle. “Not now, anyway. The others mean well, but we both know they aren’t above eavesdropping.”

“You’re going to lecture me.” I turned up my head, resting my chin between the pectorals of his leather breastplate. The cold, gilded spikes proclaiming his new High General status pricked me, but I didn’t mind. Already the panic was leaching out of me, drawn by the poultice of his steady heartbeat. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. Kirah tried all day, and she didn’t get far.”

“No lecture,” he promised, murmuring into the silk of my hair scarf. “Tar, if you don’t want to go to the banquet, then . . . don’t.”

I would have stumbled back in shock if his solid arms hadn’t held me there. “You can’t be serious.” I blinked up at him. “Of course I have to go. It’s my banquet.”

If my contradictory moods surprised Sanjeet, he didn’t show it. “You are empress,” he said simply. He traced the raised oval where my obabirin mask lay hidden beneath my shift. “Do whatever the hell you want.”

I shook my head, speaking slowly as if he no longer spoke Arit. “The fate of the entire continent depends on what I say at this party. You know that. Are you—” I squinted suspiciously. “Are you trying to guilt me into going down there?”

“By saying the opposite?” His bushy eyebrows knit. “That sounds . . . complicated.”

I breathed a laugh. “Sorry,” I said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “You’ve never had the mind of a courtier. You’re too straightforward for that. But I don’t get it—Jeet, what side are you on?”

“The hardest side to be on: the one that keeps you alive.” He smiled, though the bitterness in his tone bled through. “Between challenging Underworld demons and planning prison heists, you seem . . . determined to heighten security risks.”

“I was born a security risk.”

His smile faded. “You know I don’t mean your mother’s curse. Tar . . . Aritsar hasn’t seen someone like you in centuries.”