“Liv,” she warned quietly. They were being watched.

Liv drew her hand away, but Roar didn’t move. His eyes glossed with tears. He was holding his breath. Holding on to the last of his self-control.

“You almost killed me,” he whispered hoarsely. “I hate you, Liv. I hate you.”

It was such a lie. It was as far from the truth as words could be. Here, among Sable’s people, it was all he could say.

“I know,” Liv said.

A sour-faced older woman by the bar cut her eyes at Aria. Suddenly everyone seemed to be watching and listening. “We have to get out of here,” she whispered.

“Liv, you need to leave,” Roar said quietly. “Right now. It’s too much of a risk for you to stay. He’ll know how you feel.”

Liv shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t change anything. He knew the minute you showed up.”

Aria leaned toward them. “Let’s go,” she said, just as Sable’s guards burst through the door.

Aria and Roar were stripped of their knives and hauled back through the city streets. Seeing them treated like captives, Liv yelled and flew into a fury that fell just short of drawing her half-sword, but the guards didn’t relent. Sable’s orders, they told her.

Aria exchanged a worried look with Roar as they approached Sable’s looming fortress. Liv had said that Sable knew the truth of her feelings for Roar. She hadn’t seemed concerned. Their marriage was arranged; it had never been about love. But a hard pit of worry settled in Aria’s stomach.

They were taken past the great hall—now empty and silent—and through the winding corridors to the dining room with the bramble centerpiece and the rust-colored drapes. Sable sat at the table, talking with a man Aria recognized. He was bedraggled, spoons and trinkets hanging from his clothes. His teeth were few and crooked.

He looked vaguely familiar, like a figure she’d seen in a dream—or a nightmare. Then she remembered. She’d caught a glimpse of him during her Marking Ceremony. He was the gossip who’d been there the night she’d been poisoned.

A single thought blared inside her mind.

This man knew she was a Dweller.

When he saw them, Sable pushed back his chair and stood. He looked briefly at Liv and Roar, his expression even, almost disinterested, before turning to focus on her.

“Sorry to spoil your fun this afternoon, Aria,” he said as he walked toward her, “but Shade here has just shared some interesting facts about you. It seems I was right. You are unique.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs as he stopped in front of her. She couldn’t look away from his piercing blue eyes. When he spoke again, the cutting tone in his voice sent a chill up her spine. “Did you come here to steal what I know, Dweller?”