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Veyka must have felt the same.

She wore her customary dark-hued, flowing combination of scanty clothing. A kind of armor all its own, I’d come to realize. Her body was so different from the thin, supple forms prized by our kind. But she refused to cover herself. Wore more seductive, more distinctive gowns and confections than any other female in the elemental court. She dared them to look at her and judge her wanting.

I looked at her, and all I did was want.

I hadn’t visited the water gardens since my arrival at the goldstone palace, though I’d walked past their entrance a few times. It was located near the rear of the castle, where the goldstone palace abutted the mountains. Like everything, it was connected to a courtyard. Though, I’d noticed, this one was always conspicuously empty.

The entrance was barred by a wide golden gate, each long vertical bar twisted into a decorative design—vines, waves, flowers, clouds. An odd mixture of elemental and terrestrial symbols. Perhaps a reference to the age of this place, to a time before the kingdoms were divided, before the Great War and the treaty that had followed.

Veyka had already pried open the gate.

Maybe she’d arrived before me, just so she could do it in peace—tackle that challenge on her own, without an audience.

I raked my eyes over her, noting the familiar daggers in their twin scabbards at her waist and the wicked curved blades crossed over her back. A breeze caught her skirt, and I saw two more knives—one strapped to her thigh, the other small as a child’s finger and slipped between the lacings of her slippers.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

I wouldn’t ask more. Never. Not until she was ready to offer it.

Her chin jutted out in determination. “Let’s go.”

I followed her into the gardens, waiting as she paused to lock the gate behind us.

I’d never seen a lock as intricate as the one that Veyka’s fingers systematically closed. It wasn’t one lock, but three. The levers were curved at unpredictable angles, one lock component feeding into another. They had to be opened and closed in sequence, I guessed, but that sequence wasn’t easy to follow.

Veyka’s fingers flew over them with familiar ease. That told me enough—these locks had been in place for a long time.

When she turned back to face me, her face was impenetrable. She’d snapped on that indifferent mask she’d worn for weeks after I first met her.

For once, I didn’t try to work my way past it by infuriating her, poking at her rage.

If that ruse of implacability was what she needed to survive the coming minutes… I’d done as much myself, in the early days.

The shell that Veyka had formed herself into led me down steps, each one wider than the next, until the arch above our heads gave way and the full grandeur of the water gardens came into view.

The sight stole the breath from my body.

The sound of rushing water filled the air, creeping over my senses, into my keen ears, the mist curling, cool and refreshing against my skin.

One tall waterfall dominated the space. Two stories high and as wide as the courtyard we’d just left, it descended in varying levels and drops on each side, creating a treacherous stairstep effect.

The center fell straight down, creating a cloud of white responsible for the mist that coated everything.

Veyka walked past the magnificent waterfall as if it did not exist.

She followed a stone path cut through the middle of the pool, made slick by the mist, but her steps were steady. Smaller waterfalls and pools, drops and stairwells branched off from the grand waterfall at the center.

Through the mist, I sighted the buildings. Squat enough I knew I’d have to stoop to enter them, they were cleverly incorporated among the flowing water and stone so that they blended in rather than detracting from the beauty and grandeur.

A lovely place.

And yet, Veyka moved with more tension in her shoulders than I’d ever seen.

She led me past the buildings, past the waterfalls, her eyes determinedly facing forward, refusing to look from side to side.

Finally, she cut to the right.

Straight into a solid wall.