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“You’re clever enough to figure it out, Poison.”

Poison.

My mind betrays me, dragging me back to the royal gallery last week—the press of his body against mine, the cold marble at my back, the heat of his lips, and the way he tasted of wine and smoke and something darker.

I clear my throat. “Poison. That’s the best you can come up with?”

His lips curl into a faint smirk. “Well, I can’t call you Songbird, nor your name. So I don’t have many other options.”

“You could try Sarra.”

He wrinkles his nose at the idea.

I shake my head and move farther into the room, taking a seat on a draped chair near the window. “Where’s Maxim?”

“He shouldn’t be long,” he says, settling into another seat across from me. “He’s been following up on that list today. He’ll update us when he arrives.”

I nod, tracing the frayed edge of the sheet draped over the chair.

Kallias leans forward, elbows resting on his knees as he studies me. “Have you uncovered anything else?”

“No,” I admit bitterly. “I’ve been waiting for the Eagle to return, but I haven’t seen him since the night of the first champion trial.”

“You’re certain he hasn’t been back?”

I meet his gaze, my expression firm. “If he has, we haven’t crossed paths. But I doubt it. The servants haven’t mentioned him, and they’re usually quick to gossip about anyone of importance.”

He exhales sharply, leaning back and running a hand through his hair. His stare settles on the faded patch of wall as silence falls between us.

I study the sharp lines of his jaw, the shadows beneath his eyes, the way the moonlight softens the edges of his features.

There’s something about him that looks so lonely tonight.

Aella and Kallias were born to different mothers, neither of whom ever became queen. The king never took a wife, though from what Aella told me, Kallias’s mother loved him deeply. That love, however, had not been enough. While she was pregnant with Kallias, Aella’s mother had arrived in the Sorrows, and the king’s obsession with her eclipsed everything else. After Kallias was born, his mother—heartbroken and cast aside—retreated to a villa on a private isle, choosing a life of isolation over the palace and the king who betrayed her.

“Do you ever see your mother?” I ask tentatively, already preparing for my question to be ignored.

Kallias exhales softly, twisting one of the many rings on his hand. “I visit her once a year. It’s enough.”

“Do you miss her?”

“It’s…complicated. Should you miss someone who chose to abandon you? I suppose, in some ways, I do. But in others, maybe it’s easier not to.”

I tilt my head, letting his words settle in the air between us.

“Well,” I say softly, a grudging smile tugging at my lips, “it looks like we’ve found something to agree on.”

“You have absent parents too?”

“Absent is one way to put it, but they didn’t abandon me. They both died out at sea when I was young. I don’t remember much of them at all, but I remember it was easier once the heartache numbed.”

Despite my words, an echo of pain pulses in my chest. When I look back, I find the prince watching me, and there’s something in his eyes I can’t quite name. I shift, resisting the urge to look away.

“Why are you staring?” I ask.

“I’m trying to remember what you look like.” He frowns, ochre eyes trailing over my face. “Does it exhaust you—being someone else all the time?”

“You tell me, Kallias.”