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We fell into a companionable silence as we meandered the corridors. He, whistling a soft tune, and me, leaving shattered shards of my heart in my wake like some perverted flower girl in a funerary procession for my own soul.

I felt the numbness crawling in. I felt it lurking at the edges of my pain, nibbling at it and eager to devour it up and take its place with the blessing of nothingness. It was always a gamble to give in to it. If I let it take the pain from me, I would lose a small piece of myself to it. Nothing was free, not even the bargains we made with our own emotions. If I let the numbness eat away at my pain and leave me in peace, I would lose a small piece of myself that allowed me to feel anything.

Sometimes, that bargain was worth it.

Like when a man you had started to allow in betrayed you and didn’t even have the decency to do it to your face. As far as he knew, I still didn’t know about his lies. He had no way of knowing that this soldier had shattered all the soft promises he had whispered in the dark.

And I would have it remain that way.

I smiled up to the soldier as the green carpet he spoke of came into view and the length of carved dark wood hallway that would lead into rooms that they called the salons. “Do you mind showing me around a little, sir . . . ?”

“Silvertree. Sorry, miss, I should have introduced myself. I am Sir Silvertree of Dúluachair.”

A soft smile was given to me and the way the corners of his eyes crinkled forced me to smile back at him.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sir Silvertree. I’m Cricket.”

He gave me a dandy bow at the waist and took my hand to place a chaste kiss at my knuckles. “The rumors of your charm and beauty are not exaggerated, Miss Cricket. And it would be a pleasure to show you around the salons, but unfortunately, I do not have the status to enter them and would be a poor guide. It is my understanding that, within the salons, there are just a series of rooms connected to the main hallway. There is no fear of you or any of the other daora getting lost within them.”

The fact he had called us daora and not humans should have been a record scratch on the edges of our conversation, but it barely registered beyond the ache within me.

I nodded to him and looked down the arched hallway that led along the side of the palace, massive floor-to-ceiling windows letting the light stream in without interruption. “Thank you, Sir Silvertree.”

“It is my pleasure, Miss Cricket. Should you need me, I will be here at my post.”

“And if I need you? Since you do not have the status to enter the salons, would you even be able to help?”

He smirked and leaned in like it was some great conspiracy. “If my lady charge calls for me and has need of me, I could go into the sacred chambers of the Bandrui herself to attend to her. There are no boundaries that hold a knight sworn to protect his lady if she should have true need.”

I smirked at the irony of the chivalrous loophole but couldn’t help but notice that, even though Silvertree presented himself as a gentleman and upright knight, he was staring at my tits. I noted it but did not prevent him from leering. I could potentially use his lust to my advantage, and I would not cut myself off at the heels again for the sake of The Raven’s sick games.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Sir Silvertree. Should I find . . . a need for you.”

I let the coquettish way I twisted the word need hang between us for a short while before turning and venturing into the salons.

I could feel his gaze stripping the layers of my gown and piercing straight through to my ass. I let him look. I didn’t lean into the sway of my hips nor linger over long. The game of seduction was not something I was proficient at, but I knew it well enough to not ruin the magic of a simple flirt by exaggerating it.

There was nothing special about the salons. Only a simple collection of rooms connected by the main vein of the hallway. Each room had a fireplace at the back and artwork on the walls. As I meandered, I noted that each was decorated with a cohesive color palette, but each had a different coat of arms hanging above the fireplace and a different portrait above the fire.

The very last room in the series was the one that stopped me in my tracks. It was cold, the fireplace abandoned, and in the mouth of it, a series of candles flowed out onto the green carpets. Hundreds of them crowded together like little waxen soldiers. Each burned to a different height. Interspersed with the candles were gifts of flowers gone dry with age. Glass ornaments collecting a small patina of dust. Jewels and precious metals worked into fine treasures of all types, set into the wax. Small beads weighed down pieces of paper.

As my eye drew up the river of sentry candles, it fell on the shelf above the fireplace, where two crowns lay on purple and silver pillows, forgotten and unworn gathering dust in the ages since they had been moved. My heart twisted at the matching diadems adorned with stars and amethyst jewels.

Above that was a grand portrait of a couple. I floated toward it, stepping between the candles, until I could stand directly beneath the pair.

My mother’s turquoise eyes, dulled to a pallid pale mint by the discoloration of the resin that covered the image, twinkled down at me. She wore a fine silk gown of pale blue that reminded me of moonlight. The crown that lay on the pillow, its delicate silver work and amethyst stars, rested atop her brilliant golden-blonde head. Her hand was tucked into the pale palm of a man in dark blue-black, his midnight hair long and adorned with tiny braids cuffed in and studded with gems. The austere crown that rested on the pillow next to my mother’s rested atop his head. His stormy grey eyes bore down on me, and while he wore a stern scowl, there was something warm in the crinkle at the edges of his eyes, like he was laughing at himself for being so serious. Behind them a great manor house rose on a hill that overlooked flourishing farmlands and a dense thicket of forests that I could almost smell.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

I didn’t jump at the sound of the strange woman’s voice.

But I did turn to see a woman in a dark, almost black, purple silk gown, with black hair and pale jade eyes, coming into the room. A sash of silver stars adorned her waist, a large amethyst dripping from the end of the belt near her knees. She was beautiful in her own way, but something seemed off about her. A strange sense of something being out of place hung about her and itched at the back of my throat.

I turned my gaze back up to the pair in the portrait, ignoring the woman, even when she drew herself up parallel to me and stared up at the couple.

“I come here often to look at them. Especially when the salon is empty.”

Her voice curled around my head like perfume and left sugary notes lingering in the air between us.