Cyrus ripped the mask off and gasped as if he’d been suffocating. The cool air was divine on his sweat-soaked face and neck. If only Thorda didn’t insist these meetings were so vital to building the resistance. The thought of doing this again, of standing fully revealed before a crowd of onlookers, set his heart to racing and seared his mind with anxiety. He weathered it, trusting the panic to pass. It always did, so long as he closed his eyes and focused on nothing but his breathing.

Minutes later, footsteps pulled him from his inner silence. Cyrus panicked, and he was halfway to pulling the mask back over his face when he realized it was Keles. Given the night’s chill, she’d donned a heavy bearskin cloak over her dress.

“If you would tell me when you wish to leave these parties, I could escort you out,” she said. “It would prove much more convenient than hunting you down afterward once something upsets you.”

Cyrus laughed weakly.

“Sorry. I’ve no excuse. This is, what, the twelfth such meeting like this? Thirteenth?”

“But the first you revealed your face.”

“Yeah.” He bit at the interior of his cheek, trying to fight off a wave of panic. “It was the first doing that.”

Keles wrapped the cloak more tightly about her body and joined him upon the iron bench. The garden was much plainer than the one they’d congregated within prior to Cyrus’s first dalliance with the wealthy elite. The ground beneath them was a swathe of pebbles smoothed by the tide, and they crunched underneath her dark leather boots. It amused Cyrus, knowing that despite the elegance of her dress, she still wore practical footwear compared to the high-heeled and tightly bound shoes currently in fashion. He had to admit, the sword strapped to her thigh was also a far more impressive accessory than any purse or corsage.

“Why does it bother you so?” she asked. “Is it because you fear having your identity known?”

Cyrus had thought that would be the case. After years of being presumed dead, he certainly felt a vague sense of dread at the empire discovering he had survived Lycaena’s execution.

“It seems like that should be it, but it’s not,” he said. “Standing before that crowd, my face naked… when I removed the mask, it should have made people realize the Vagrant Prince was truly Cyrus Lythan. But the opposite happened. Cyrus Lythan became the Vagrant Prince. Instead of revealing myself, of who I truly am, the reverse happened. Who I am now is inseparable from the Vagrant. I’ve become him. Or maybe he’s replaced me.”

“You speak as if the Vagrant and you are two different people.”