Melanthea’s vision swam. Her heart hammered against her ribs, erratic, furious, terrified.

  What is Everen doing here?

  The king gestured for her to walk beside him, his arm wrapping around her waist like a snake—constricting, controlling. She forced herself not to flinch as some nearby noblemen haggled over the newest creatures that had been brought into the palace. She caught the edge of their words and nearly gagged.

  They spoke of her. Of the price her skin, and all her parts, was worth.

  As if she would never stop being an object to be bought.

  And then, there she was again. Everen.

  She caught Melanthea’s gaze from across the ballroom, those piercing sea-blue eyes now unfamiliar and devoid of their former warmth. A man stood beside her, dripping in Sun armor. And the girl was laughing. Laughing as if she wasn’t in any danger. Laughing like she belonged at his side.

  Her raven hair came unpinned from the right side of her face, just a strand, just for a moment. Enough.

  Melanthea froze.

  With frantic movements, the girl—almost the spitting image of Everen—scrambled to pull her hair back into place, her hands shaking as she revealed scars. Burn scars.

  A sickness bloomed in Melanthea’s chest.

  That’s not Everen.

  She wore one of Everen’s dresses, yes. She resembled her greatly. But that sickly thinness that possessed her, that scarred cheek, that flinch. Everen would never have let her guard fall so completely. Not even in sleep.

  And then the necklace caught her eye.

  The emerald. A glittering teardrop of green hanging at her neck, familiar as breath.

  Melanthea staggered back a step, her foot catching on the silk of her dress.

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  Everen’s last words before escape echoed through her memory, laced with pain: “Mel, I have some people very dear to me. If they ever need help, you will know. The emerald won’t be worn unless it’s needed.”

  It was being worn now.

  Melanthea’s pulse thundered in her ears. Her fingers itched to move—to run, to reach—but the king’s hand kept her anchored in place.

  She needed to get to the girl. Now. But to do so without arousing the king’s suspicion… that would prove difficult. And not just difficult in the punishment context, but in the almost certain death context.

  “My king,” she said sweetly, gently massaging his shoulder like she meant it. “If it pleases you, may I—”

  The doors at the entryway burst open with a crack of steel on stone.

  “Sir!” A guard shouted. Several more rushed in behind, panting, armor clanking. “It has been located!”

  Melanthea’s blood turned to ice. It has been located. That bevrodraach, a helpless creature like she once was, was about to be subjected to all manner of horrors.

  The king’s eyes, dead and too green for someone without a soul, met hers. He lifted her hand to his lips, a cold kiss placed with just enough cruelty. “Talk to me later, my dear,” he said. “It is the hour of immortality.”

  He turned, boots clicking sharply across the marble. He whispered something to the guards, then pivoted back toward the crowd.

  “Everyone!” He called, swishing a glass of wine with a grin. “We must cut this ball short, I’m afraid. Something of mine that was stolen has been found—and I must retrieve it.”

  The ballroom erupted into chaos as people scrambled out the doors, not wanting to overstay their welcome in the place that was surely soon to become a slaughterhouse.

  Melanthea’s eyes snapped back to where the girl had been standing just moments before, but she was nowhere to be found.

  No. No, not yet.

  The chaos swelled like a scream in her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Melanthea pushed forward, limping faster than she’d moved in months, grabbing hold of the staircase railing and dragging herself up the steps. At the top, vision swimming, she scanned the crowd once more.

  There.

  Through the chaos, she caught a glimpse—just a flicker of dark hair and green velvet. The girl, hand in hand with her soldier.

  They were slipping out the side doors the king and his men had exited just moments earlier. The girl glanced over her shoulder, whispering something to the Sun beside her.

  Her expression was no longer carefree laughter, it was fear. Deep, aching fear.

  Melanthea gripped the ornate banister so tightly that the jagged pieces drew blood.

  Not again, she thought. I won’t lose the only other person who can help me. I can’t.