“Your sister is not the Duchess,” the Justice growled, jerking Winton from her side, his right hand tight and white-knuckled on her brother’s shoulder. “The coronation was never completed.” He waved over a couple of his men, who hauled Constance clumsily to her feet. She dropped the handkerchief, which flopped, sodden, onto the floor. Her head pounded, but her mind was clear. Blood had spilled over the white and green robes, she noticed, ruining the embroidery worn by her Ancestors for generations. And her glove … her glove had slipped down her arm, revealing the sore place where the metal joined her flesh. She pushed it up, guessing by the lack of reaction that nobody had noticed. She would keep what secrets she had left.

The Justice addressed the congregation a second time. “The pretender Constance Rathbone has deceived you all.” His eyes found the Wise Men and narrowed. “And you have allowed it. Constance has already shown herself to be a traitor—a mage, no less, and an imposter. Her brother has done nothing but support her wickedness,” he added, his grip on Winton’s shoulder tightening. Constance watched as he tried to suppress a wince. “Now, by the King’s true authority, I claim a change of regime in Duke’s Forest. The reign of the Rathbones has ended. For years, I have been ruling the dukedom in all but name—and now…” He pressed down on Winton’s shoulder, forcing him to his knees. “I will be the Duke.” He lifted the crown, placed it on his own head.

Then he turned to Constance, a small smile twisting his lips as he flexed the fingers of his gauntlet and nodded at his men. “Take her to the dungeons.”

As they half dragged, half carried her out, Constance felt as if she were floating.

It was all over. She’d never find the heart now.

*    *    *

Constance sat in her cell a few hours later, listening to the drip-drip-drip of damp into a puddle.

Drip.

I’ve failed.

Drip.

I’ll never find the heart.

Drip.

I’ll never fulfill my destiny.

The storm cloud seeped and sank into the damp cells through the high, glassless windows, creating low-lying patches, green-tinged and venomous, light flickering within them like a serpent’s tongue. Taunting her.

How did I miss the gauntlet? How did I get so complacent? How did I allow myself to be outwitted?

Constance let her magical senses open. She felt her own power under her skin, the unruly force she had tamed over long years of enforced discipline and willing learning. She sensed the presence of Mythris too: a gossamer thread tethering her magic to her faith and holding it in place—binding her to a mutable god she’d never quite understood, but whose power appeared to be blissfully unconditional on her morality.