Could she and Kem sneak away somehow? Flee? Yet how? Where? And this time, she had something she did not want to leave behind: a place she called home. People she cared about. Something to lose, besides her life.

A wave of exhaustion struck hard. She sagged forward, elbows on thighs, to rest her face in her hands. The viper stirred but settled. Her mind was a muddy field, all churned into a soupy mush that had neither texture nor contour. She could not keep a thought in her head for more than a moment before it shattered and sank beneath the murk.

Now what? Now what? If only …

But “if only” was how Ao had driven herself all those years into repeated breakdowns and deep despondencies. “If only” offered no way to survive.

The haunt was gone. Kem was a warden. She now belonged to the prince’s personal household because His Exalted Highness had proclaimed it, and that made it true no matter what she wanted. Her viper was the weapon he planned to use to capture the throne of the Tranquil Emperor for himself.

In a heartbeat, a life changes.

“Aunt?”

Kem’s whisper brought her up fast. She jumped to her feet.

He stood at the threshold scanning the chamber to make sure no one else was inside. Then he dashed forward, and she opened her arms. He flung himself into her embrace, her sweet child who had once, as a toddler, hugged her knees and shouted, with great, excited approval, “You smell like poop and worms, Auntie,” after she had returned from cleaning the privies.

She sighed, holding him. He who was now as tall as she was, broader in the shoulder, strong and good-natured and clever. She breathed deeply of him.

“Poop and worms,” she murmured affectionately.

“I’ll never hear the end of that story, even though I don’t remember it.” He pushed away from her. He had that serious look he got when he was trying to figure out the hardest puzzles in his gentle life. His gaze dropped to her neck. “I know it’s just a wicked old scar, but did you get it when you were an atoner? It seems like the kind of nasty thing that would happen.”

She brushed her fingers along the faint indentation. “I honestly don’t have any memory of how or when I got it.”

He grinned. “Like me and my broken little finger.”

“You and your turnip,” she retorted.

He almost laughed, then sobered. “Simo said the prince has declared you are to join his household, alongside Fulmo and Luviara, and beside us wardens. Is that true? How can it be true? What’s happening?”

In a low voice, she said, “He knows about the haunt, about everything that happened when the haunt was possessing his body, which he wasn’t supposed to know. He was supposed to have been as if asleep. But he saw and heard everything.”