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I froze.

“Something wrong, Your Majesty?” Tymedes’s tone was even more of a taunt than usual.

Ignoring him, I continued walking. Nelia would know nothing. Her face flashed through my memory, eyes blank, staring accusingly at me. Gritting my teeth, I thrust the image away. I’d told her to flee.

I found Lisveth waiting outside my rooms, and her mouth dropped open as her gaze clung to my face like a child clinging to its mother’s skirts. “Your Majesty! We were so worried.”

There was something strangely comforting about her face—still seemingly incapable of hiding her thoughts. I waved her into my rooms, and she rang the bell that would call the others.

I allowed it. This might, after all, be the last time I saw them.

If I told them to run, they would question me. Andif they knew I was leaving, Sabium’s truth-seekers would learn such information the moment I left. No, their ignorance would keep them safe.

Safer than Nelia.

And still…

“I was injured at the market. My guards left me to put out the fire. Thankfully, one of the merchants helped, but I was unconscious until he could find a good healer.”

I rattled off the story, nodding at a maid, who turned to find me a clean gown. When she returned with two options, I gestured to the one in her left hand. A deep, unrelenting red.

My ladies returned as the maid was lacing the back of the gown.

Lisveth happily repeated my story, and I ignored the crease of Pelopia’s brow, the questions in Caraceli’s eyes.

“I believe the king has missed you, Your Majesty,” Alcandre said as the maid finished my hair. “Each night, he spends several hours reading and writing in his diary. I’m sure he scrawls his love for you.”

My eyes met hers.

Something had made Alcandre emboldened. While Lisveth had allowed the terror of this place to drain the life from her face and the fat from her body, Alcandre seemed to have used it to harden herself. She was brasher. Fiercer. For the first time, I wondered what she might have been like as a true ally.

Everyone in this room knew Sabium held no love for me. I surveyed her, standing in a new gown, a jeweled bracelet dangling from her wrist. Anewbracelet.

I almost smiled. Alcandre was fucking my husband.And she was taunting me with it.

But she’d unwittingly helped me.

I allowed a hint of color to rise to my cheeks, even as I glanced away dismissively and then back at her, as if I couldn’t help myself.

“He writes about me?” I asked tentatively.

“I would assume so, Your Majesty. It really is adorable. The only place he’s without it is his bath!”

Lisveth sighed. “That is so romantic.”

No one else spoke. Pelopia stared at Alcandre as if she had never seen her before. Everyone except idiotic Lisveth knew what Alcandre was doing by demonstrating such an intimate knowledge of Sabium’s nighttime habits.

I gave her a nod, allowing her to see her point had been made. Victory and fury warred in her eyes.

Alcandre’s new attitude proved I hadn’t been paying enough attention to my ladies. She had spotted an opportunity to claw at some power and had taken it—I couldn’t blame her for that. In fact, some part of me was proud.

But while she thought she was humiliating me by climbing into Sabium’s bed, the reality was quite different.

I would need to wait until Sabium was bathing. That would be my only opportunity to take the grimoire.

Lisveth’s smile had fallen. It was clear she now knew exactly how Alcandre was taunting me. Her face flushed, and she gazed at the floor.

I rolled my eyes. “I must go dine with my husband.” Alcandre tensed at that, and I was small enough to enjoy it. “It’s a private dinner,” I purred. “So I will see all of you tomorrow.”