“Fine,” I said. “But my empire is in crisis, people are trying to kill me, and another legitimate heir to the throne just showed up on my doorstep. I’m not exactly flush with time to plan a party. Will you help me?”
“Only because any party you’d plan would just make everyone more miserable than they already were.” Oleander shoved a heap of fabric into my arms. “Now try this on.”
I shook it out. Billowing silk was dyed in sky-lit colors—ruffled amethyst at the bodice edging toward velveteen blue at the hem. A narrow waist flowed into a skirt like shadow. Cascades of pearls rippled along the trim, lustrous white against a dusky sky.
“Oleander,” I breathed. “This is—”
“I know.” She gestured toward the dressing screen, impatient.
Obediently, I slipped behind the screen and shucked off my sunny gown, tossing it over the top. The twilight gown sighed against my skin, as soft as it was lovely. It was a touch snug around my waist and shoulders, and pooled heavy around my feet, but I could almost imagine it had been made for me.
“What—?” Oleander’s surprised voice jolted me, and I jerked my head around the dressing screen. She was holding a slim volume, bound in suede and stamped in gilt. “A book? I didn’t know you could read.”
Severine’s journal. I knew I shouldn’t carry that thing around.
“Why were you going through the pockets of my dress?”
“People keep such interesting things in their pockets.” She flipped open the front cover. I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood.
“Don’t,” I pleaded. “Give me that!”
Oleander ignored me, scanning the first few pages.
“This is a diary!” Glee made gems of her eyes. But after a moment her smile fell away, replaced by a line between her perfect brows. “But this isn’t your chicken scratch. Who does this belong to?”
I considered lying, then decided against it. I’d intuited it as Severine’s after only a few moments. Oleander was many things—few of which I liked—but she wasn’t stupid. And there was no real harm in telling her the truth.
“It’s Severine’s, I think.”
Oleander looked faintly impressed. “You stole the personal diary of your half sister and empress just spans after you tried to kill her and take her throne? And here I’ve been wondering what my brother possibly sees in you.”
“I didn’tstealit.” I definitely stole it.
“Have you read it?”
“No.”
“Scion’s teeth, why not?” Oleander threw herself across the foot of her bed. She sucked her lower lip into her mouth and flipped through the diary. “The sinful and sordid saga of Severine Sabourin? Sounds better than any novel I’ve ever read.”
“Please don’t—” I made a grab for it, but Oleander easily dodged me, her eyes still on the pages. “You really shouldn’t.”
“Wait a minute.” She sat bolt upright at the end of the bed, her thumb wedged between the pages of Severine’s diary. Her forest-dark gaze fixed on me and her lacquered lips forgot their customary languid smirk. “You really didn’t read this?”
I shook my head. “A few lines. That’s it.”
“Last span, during the coup—you were hoping to find a second Relic, weren’t you?”
I lifted both my eyebrows. Only Dowser, Sunder, and I were supposed to know about the Relics.
“Please.” She smirked, reading my thoughts. “We tell each other everything. It’s a twin thing.”
“Yes, all right,” I snapped. “We’re still looking.”
“Well, I think I just found a Relic,” Oleander breathed. “It’s right here in the diary.”
“Iknew there was a second Relic!” Dowser cried, his dark eyes shining with triumph.
My heart sang to see Dowser so thrilled. He’d suspected Severine had a second Relic in her possession for tides, but like everything else in her court, the empress kept her secrets in a stranglehold. Not even Dowser—one of her oldest friends and most trusted advisors—had been able to wheedle its location from her. At Carrousel—while I faced Severine—Luca had set a diversion to distract the Skyclad, Sunder had rallied my dissident legacies, and Dowser had broken into her private sanctum in hopes of finding the Relic. But he’d failed, and I knew he blamed himself to some degree for the death and violence that followed.
