“Lending,” I corrected. “And if he doesn’t like it, he can learn to leave more careful instructions.”

“It’s smart,” Tamar said, tossing a teal cape over her shoulders and looking at herself in the mirror. “He needs to look like a King, and you need to look like a Queen.”

“There’s something else,” I said. Again, I felt that shyness creep over me. I still didn’t quite know how to behave around the other Grisha. Were they friends? Subjects? This was new territory. But I didn’t want to be alone in my room with nothing but my thoughts and a pile of dresses for company.

I took out Nikolai’s ring and set it on the table.

“Saints,” breathed Genya. “That’s the Lantsov emerald.”

It seemed to glow in the lamplight, the tiny diamonds twinkling around it.

“Did he just give it to you? To keep?” asked Nadia.

Genya seized my arm. “Did he propose?”

“Not exactly.”

“He might as well have,” Genya said. “That ring is an heirloom. The Queen wore it everywhere, even to sleep.”

“Toss him over,” Zoya said. “Break his heart cruelly. I will gladly give our poor prince comfort, and I would make a magnificent queen.”

I laughed. “You actually might, Zoya. If you could stop being horrible for a minute.”

“With that kind of incentive, I can manage a minute. Possibly two.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s just a ring.”

Zoya sighed and held the emerald up so it flashed. “I am horrible,” she said abruptly. “All these people dead, and I miss pretty things.”

Genya bit her lip, then blurted, “I miss almond kulich. And butter, and the cherry jam the cooks used to bring back from the market in Balakirev.”

“I miss the sea,” said Tamar, “and my hammock aboard the Volkvolny.”

“I miss sitting by the lake at the Little Palace,” Nadia put in. “Drinking my tea, everything feeling peaceful.”

Zoya looked at her boots and said, “I miss knowing what happens next.”

“Me too,” I confessed.

Zoya set the ring down. “Will you say yes?”

“He didn’t actually propose.”

“But he will.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

She gave a disgusted snort. “I lied. Now I have never loathed you more.”

“It would be something special,” said Tamar, “to have a Grisha on the throne.”

“She’s right,” added Genya. “To be the ones to rule, instead of just to serve.”

They wanted a Grisha queen. Mal wanted a commoner queen. And what did I want? Peace for Ravka. A chance to sleep easy in my bed without fear. An end to the guilt and dread that I woke to every morning. There were old wants too, to be loved for who I was, not what I could do, to lie in a meadow with a boy’s arms around me and watch the wind move the clouds. But those dreams belonged to a girl, not to the Sun Summoner, not to a Saint.

Zoya sniffed, settling a seed pearl kokochnik atop her hair. “I still say it should be me.”