The lies spilled from her, easy as water. As the Wise Men rose to their feet, voting unanimously to pass the motion, she smiled and smiled until her cheeks ached.

Constance stood on the battlements and peered into the storm cloud, which was thickening and thinning strangely in a nonexistent breeze. The dense clouds drifted in out of nowhere, plunging her into semidarkness before dispersing without a trace. Flashes flickered at the edges of her vision, the odd rumble like the snore of a sleeping dragon. All that power … so close—and yet so far. She flexed her fingers, her right hand cold even beneath her fitted leather glove, her left hand as unfeeling as ever. The brass mask felt unusually warm over her face, its cogs whirring. As well as providing a means of “seeing” magic, the mask was designed to filter out the effects of spells, allowing her eyes to remain unaffected by the storm cloud’s noxious properties. A sudden gust of wind whipped through her skirts tauntingly. The storm cloud is playing games. She steadied herself on the crenellations guiding her along the walkway. And this was supposed to clear my head?

She’d spent most of the night searching the crypts under the upper town. She’d found nothing. And despite her triumph at the Witenagemot, dark dreams had haunted her few sleeping hours. Dreams of her mother’s corpse, of Emris’s scars twisting in disappointment, of wrathful gods, of forsaken Ancestors, of dark shadows following her in the night. Is there anyone I haven’t angered?

She walked up to the edge, her footsteps clicking through the gloom in rhythm with the tap of her gold-tipped cane. Her shadow threw itself against a thick patch of cloud, and she started backward before sighing at her credulity. Leaning against the cold, damp stone, she looked down. Vaguely, she could see the rooftops of the upper town, overgrown with gray moss. Moss and fungus appeared to thrive in the storm cloud.

Constance wondered what Emris thought of her now. She had lied to him, yes. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t loved him, in her way. She remembered the night they had met, the stars over the palace like a silent chorus in silver and white. She pushed the memory aside. After all, she had more pressing concerns. Who had seen her that night after the feast? Whoever it was, they were biding their time, waiting for the right moment to strike.

The Justice, perhaps? She felt an unwelcome shiver of fear.