Sabine set the bird on the desk beside the lamp and stared at it.
Isolde’s music in Brinna’s pillow.
A physician’s near-confession.
A dead bride’s history rising through planted objects and frightened women.
A prince she could not stop wanting.
And now a message left inside her own hiding place.
She crossed to the window and looked out over the gardens.
Below, the paths lay pale and orderly. The hedge maze looked harmless from this height. The palace roofs beyond it sat under a sky the color of worn steel. Everything arranged. Everything watched.
Somewhere inside this place, the truth about Isolde still existed in full. Not the court version. Not the temple version. The real one. And now someone knew Sabine was close enough to matter.
She pressed her marked palm against the glass.
The lines pulsed warm in answer.
The danger was no longer distant. It was in her room. In her desk. In the things left behind when no one admitted entering.
She looked back at the black-winged bird on the desk.
The palace wanted her frightened into silence.
That, more than anything, made her certain she was moving in the right direction.
She left the bird where it was.
The next person who entered her room uninvited would not find her surprised.
Fifteen
The Trial of Mirrors
Sabine woke to the carved bird staring at her from across the room, its blackened wing catching the first pale light.
Someone had entered her chamber while she slept. Someone had taken her notes. Someone wanted her to know she was being watched.
She should have felt violated. Frightened.
Instead she felt furious.
And underneath the fury, more insistent and harder to ignore: the memory of Lucien’s hands on her body. His mouth on her throat. The rough desperation in his voice when he saidI cannot stopas if wanting her was costing him something he could not afford to lose.
Sabine pressed her marked palm against her stomach where heat still pulsed faintly and forced herself to breathe evenly.
She had bigger problems than want.
The palace had just proven it could reach into her private space and take whatever it needed. That meant her investigationwas no longer secret. That meant someone powerful knew how close she was getting to the truth about Isolde.
That meant she was running out of time.
A knock at the door.
Lysa entered carrying a formal summons sealed with the royal crest.
