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CHAPTER 1

• Alessia •

A HAND CLAMPS over my mouth, and every nerve in my body reacts.

My eyes fly open to the darkness inside this freezing barn. For one terrible heartbeat, I am certain that the King’s Guard has returned to drag another one of us into the night while we pretend to sleep.

I claw at the hand as my lungs seize around the scream trapped beneath it. I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything besides panic, but my blood comes alive without permission.

The shiver starts in my bones and tingles up my spine. Thunder crackles loudly, and warmth spills from my skin. My panic sharpens as the hay beneath my body responds to the magic I struggle to contain. It feels like trying to harness the ocean, each wave breaking higher and higher. The brittle hay softens, coming to life again.

A bolt of lightning flashes through the wooden slats above.

Then he’s there.

Arlo.

He crouches beside my bed, one finger pressed to his lips. The panic drains out of me in a single instant, leaving my pulse ragged and my hands shaking from the adrenaline.

I glance sideways. Sable is still beside me, curled into a tight ball with her knees drawn to her chest. Her shallow breath rattles. The wet sound in her lungs has been getting worse every day. She’s lost so much weight that I can see the jut of her collarbone and the hollowed dip of her cheeks that used to be full and soft when we still had enough to eat.

I look back at Arlo, and he slowly removes his hand from my mouth.

“Arlo?” I breathe. “What are you—”

“Shh.” He tilts his head toward the barn doors, where the faintest glow from outside creeps through the gap at the bottom. My brows knit together. If Madam Claudia catches him in my quarters, we’ll both be punished.

He pulls his hand away a second time, and I press my palm flat against my chest. “You nearly gave me a heart attack,” I whisper.

Even in the dark, his grin steals my breath and makes my stomach flutter, but I shove the feeling down where it belongs.

“Come on,” he says, tugging the blanket off me before picking up his backpack.

“Come where?”

“Just come before Crawly wakes up.”

That alone tells me this is a terrible idea, but Arlo is already rummaging in his bag. He tosses me a cloak, and as he zips up the bag and removes his worn gloves, I admire the soft, thick fabric in my hand. I’ve never seen it before, and it feels far too expensive for a servant to own.

I slip the cloak on, wondering where he got it, but I’m not sure I want to know, especially with how this flu has ravaged the island. The population dwindles daily.

Arlo steps closer, tucking his gloves under his arm to help button my new cloak, and the curiosity becomes too much. “Is this yours?”

His gaze snaps to mine. “If it makes you feel better about wearing it, then yes, it’s mine.”

I suck in a breath, peering back at Sable’s shivering body under the threadbare blanket, wondering if this cloak once warmed a girl just like her.

My gaze moves about the cavernous barn, remembering when this place was packed with other workers and animals. We were crammed so tight you couldn’t roll over without elbowing a pig or ending up with someone’s foot in your face. Now it’s only Sable and me.

There are still other workers packed into the cabins on the outskirts of the farm, but fewer remain every day. Some are gone without explanation, like they were never here at all.

When the cold snap took hold of our island, the pigs were slaughtered first. We’d never seen a winter here, not like this. It was like the sky turned gray overnight, and the wind off the water grew cold and sharp.

At first, we marveled at the sight of palm leaves dusted with frost. We’d only ever known heat, humidity, and the tropical storms that bent trees and kept everything wet for months.

The air cut through our layers of thin cotton clothes, and Madam Claudia stitched cloaks from scraps of old feed sacks. When the chickens stopped laying eggs, they ended up as soup. The crops died out. The farm hands who had no debt to Crawly left in search of work, but those of us bound to this farm by contract are stuck waiting. Waiting for the snow to stop and the ground to thaw. Waiting for our contracts to be resold at the flesh markets. Or waiting to die here like the crops that once filled this barren land.

When Mr. Crawly first found us at the flesh markets, he assumed our debt to the Crown in exchange for labor, but without the means to make payments on our debts and his taxes, we’ll be forced back to the flesh markets, and our debt will be sold to someone who can pay the king.