A storm cloud. A rumble of thunder and a surge of blue-hot pain. Nausea. The touch of burning metal against the skin of her arm. She tried to scream, a whimper escaping her lips.

Gong.

Her father’s broken body pooling blood. Father. The thought jerked her awake and she sat up abruptly. She was alone in the bed, the sheets beside her cold—and suddenly Constance felt cold too. Xander had gone. The whole thing felt like a strange dream.

Gong.

And then she remembered: The bell of the dead. Her father’s Descent. She was late.

She scrambled out of bed, felt a flash of anger that no one had woken her sooner—that she hadn’t woken by herself. It wasn’t like her to sleep late.

She threw on clean clothes and a fur-lined gray cloak and stared at herself in the mirror. A mess. Darkness shadowed her eyes as she pulled her hair into a severe bun and splashed yesterday’s water on her face. No mask today. It wouldn’t be respectful.

Constance took her cane and walked quickly downstairs and into the courtyard. Already a crowd spilled into the great hall. Everyone had dressed in their finest, the colors somber but the fabrics rich and strangely luxurious against their ashen faces and downcast eyes.

Xander caught her near the door, resting a hand softly on her right arm. “I was worried about you. I thought I was doing you a favor by letting you sleep, but…”

“It’s all right,” she said, suppressing her annoyance and forcing a smile. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

He squeezed her arm.

“You’d better leave me before people start talking,” Constance added. Xander’s face grew respectful. He nodded at her and took his place among the other Wise Men.

The crowd parted for her, murmuring, as she entered the hall. She nodded as she passed, trying to appear stately and unhurried, as if she shouldn’t have been the first inside.

She approached the platform that had been set up in the center of the hall, in front of the large trapdoors, whispers gradually falling to silence. Her father had been dressed in the black robes of the dead, his limbs straightened out, the mess cleaned from his face. The wound on his head had been bound in black bandages. Constance drew closer, remembered the pool of blood soaking into her boots, shivered. The Duke’s face was as pale as marble, his cheekbones prominent, his brows furrowed, and his mouth set in a hard line. His eyes had been replaced by glittering sapphires and were fixed on the ceiling far above. He didn’t look like himself at all. He didn’t even look at peace. He looked enraged.