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“Don’t sell your husband short, Caly.” Lye ambled up beside me. “I saw at least three courtiers swoon over all that leather.”

Raff’s scowl deepened, but so did Calytrix’s smile.

I was grateful that she’d agreed to come to the palace after I’d asked for another meeting. Right now, I wanted to spend as much time as possible at Keil’s bedside.

Soon, I wouldn’t be able to.

I reached into my pocket and withdrew the compass I now carried with me everywhere, its weight familiar and yet completely new. I didn’t yet know how this throne room had become its sanctuary, keeping it hidden for so many years. But the moment I’d recognized the compass star on the ceiling, and realized that something was embedded within the dayglass walls, I knew I’d found the solution to Erik’s dilemma.

Without hesitation, I offered Calytrix the compass. She removed a glove before taking it. Her breath snagged. Then, once again, her eyes glazed over.

“Does it come from the same vat of power as the first?” I asked quietly, already knowing the answer. But to take my next steps, I had to be sure.

Calytrix’s eyes met mine. Confirmation shone in their depths.

“You were correct,” she said, her voice wispy. “This is the reason the Unbreakable Blade did not operate even when King Erik possessed the compass. All the Spellmade siblings must be united to gain full function.”

I nodded, both relieved and newly burdened.

There had been multiple sightings of the compass throughout history—accounts that conflicted with the Hunters’ ownership of it. I’d heard one myself on Banarrat, within the tale of the lovers’ embrace. A lost traveler used his mother’s old compass to find north but instead found the Wielder who became his true love.

There was truth behind those accounts. Truth, too, in Saxon’s symbol: Gods cannot stand alone. Because the Unbreakable Blade was never intended to be wielded by only one person. To some extent, Erik must have known that, which was why he’d always needed me to stand beside him—just as Queen Piper had stood beside Saxon throughout every conquest, until her death had rendered him vulnerable in his final battle. But Erik had never realized that Piper and Saxon had each wielded their own compass.

Erik only possessed one.

And now I possessed the other.

I was returning it to my pocket when Calytrix’s hand clutched mine. Her eyes were distant and focused all at once, and my pulse sped up for no definable reason. There was no sensation associated with the touch of a Spellmaker. Only the deep, difficult knowledge that I was being wholly seen.

“There is a great deal of power inside you.” She spoke fervently, softly, the words seeming to penetrate to my bones. “Never fear it. And when the time is right, use it.”

I’d dressed for this meeting in lavender tulle.

The bodice plunged, sparkling with light purple crystals, while the skirts flared down in my usual A-line style. With my amethyst earrings and matching bracelets, I looked like the courtier I had been during Rose Season, glittering and sharp-edged—the Gem of Daradon.

Except now, there were two incongruities: the Gallery brooch, shining at my breast, and Keil’s golden hairpin, pinning up half my hair while the rest cascaded down my back.

I took a deep breath before the guarded threshold. Then I glided inside.

Vampires and forbidden love.

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The room was small and sparsely decorated: a plain round table and two chairs, a narrow bed topped with one flat pillow. The gauzy curtains hung limp, untouched by the fresh breeze coasting through the rest of the palace, because a dome of impenetrable dayglass enclosed the balcony, its rainbow color glowing under the morning sun. The air was stagnant and stifling, the light uncomfortably stark.

But it was still better than a dungeon. Far better than he deserved.

The door clicked shut behind me, but Stian didn’t look up. He kept his eyes on the playing cards he’d spread in a pinwheel over the table, his deft fingers flipping through the game. He hummed as he played—the tune he’d hummed whenever he’d been engrossed in his work.

That song, I’d said to him once, dosed on relaxants. I don’t like it.

Finally, I realized why. It was from an old Verenian nursery rhyme about a king who’d won his crown in a game of Aces.

It was the tune Erik had whistled the day he’d brought me a victory cake in the dungeons.

“Thank the gods you’re here,” Stian said. His eyes moved rapidly over the cards, his blond-gray stubble shining white across his jaw. “Nobody would deign to play with me, and there are only so many solitary games one can enjoy before boredom sets in.”

My eyes flicked to the guards posted at each corner, then landed on Osana, not dressed in her Imperial Guard uniform, yet appearing no less imposing than the others. Since Valeria had been too merciful to let the healer rot in prison, there was at least one member of our group present at all times. And after Osana had learned who’d set the fire at the settlement—who’d murdered the refugee Wielders of our home—she’d taken every available shift.