“Ah.” I open the heavy wooden door for him, and he ducks inside. This tower is cavernous, open, lined with benches and tables and the staircase tucked neatly in a corner, spiraling up into an endless column of misty, incense-choked air. The tower’s so high, you can barely see the roof, the top of it, darkness all the way up until a pinprick of glass lets light in. The walls are lined with doors, with alcoves of packed bookshelves built into the stone. I’m used to oil lamps, expecting them, but instead there are white mercury lamps.

Or what I think are mercury lamps. These are burning far too brightly and too purely to be the ones I’ve seen in Cavanos. Just one or two are needed to light an entire area. It’s possible the polymaths here perfected them—possible and absolutely jaw-dropping. If Cavanos had this sort of technology, it wouldn’t need all the white mercury it ships in from Avel and goes through like water.

“This way.” Malachite points at a far room. Our footsteps echo on the cold stone floor until we reach the door, and he knocks in that pattern he always does for Lucien. Three raps, then two.

“Come in.”

At the sound of Lucien’s voice, all the little hairs on my arms stand up and start to burn. My witch. My prince. Mine? No. My witch, but not my prince. The people’s prince. He’s only ever belonged to his people.

My unheart spasms with the realization he’s lost his sister. Again. This time to power, not faked death. This time she chose to leave instead of being driven out. He must be devastated.

Malachite pushes the door open, and the smell of cinnamon and clove bulls us down. Rich tapestries frame a round meeting table at which stands a half-bent elderly walnut of a man dressed head to toe in emerald green and gold, and Lucien, dressed in light blue and the softest smile when he sees me.

“Zera.”

He makes a polite half bow, excusing himself to the old sage man, and walks over.

It’s just one word. It shouldn’t make me so happy. It should take more than just one. It should take books, endless epic poems, a bard’s monologue to make me feel this hot, this strong, this quickly. It’s not fair. It’s not fair he can do this to me.

it’s not fair we’re still the monster.

The room is dim, but my eyes catch every fold of cloth on him, every freckle, every inch he crosses in his boots to reach me. My witch. Their prince. His eyes—I’m so used to seeing his eyes as hard onyx shards. Betrayed onyx shards. Bitter onyx shards. But now, right now, they’re spills of ink. Liquid, gentle, reflecting the scarce light of the room and my own nerves back at me.