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“You have a lovely home, and your garden is exquisite,” he said, gesturing out the open doors. Though his words were perfectly polite, there was something empty in his tone that sent shivers skittering across Shan’s skin. “Take a turn with me?”

“I’d be honored,” she said, deliberately casting her eyes low. Her posture demure and perfect, everything that was expected of a young woman who had captured her liege’s attention. It was an easy act for her to slip into—and it was certainly better than the truth.

Rage and spite could only get one so far.

The King held out his arm—perfunctory, his movements and actions just so—and the unease in Shan grew deeper. But she took it anyway, and he pulled her away, leading her on a tour of her own gardens. It was meticulously landscaped, filled with lush rose bushes in full bloom, petals scattered amongst the paths and benches. “I haven’t been here in years. Your father did wonders with it.”

Shan held her head high. “My father was never interested in horticulture. He turned the gardens over to me when I was thirteen.”

It was only a slight lie. Lord LeClaire hadn’t so much given them over to her as she had seized them—along with control of the rest of the household. In his paranoia, he had let their home go to waste, uncaring of Anton in dirt and filth as the last of the money drained away, funneled towards Shan’s education and needs.

She simply did what any enterprising young girl would—she fixed it. She hired new housekeepers in his name, new landscapers, made sure that Anton had all that he needed provided for him, then redirected their investments and kept them just on this side of bankruptcy.

It had left her angry, of course, but she couldn’t let it show. When she was supposed to be focusing on her studies, she had to save her family from the shadows while her father took all the credit. That had been the beginning of it all.

The King had stopped by the rose bushes along the stone wall—Aeravinian roses—and carefully plucked a freshly bloomed flower. He twirled it in his fingers, staring at the petals as they spun. Turning to Shan, he asked, “Blood, then?”

It took her a moment to process his question, but she quickly recovered. “Yes, weekly.” Like the rest of the household, Shan had been determined to make her gardens the best in the city. Careful planning and study—and the judicious application of blood, bled into the ground and powered by a simple spark of magic—meant that the roses bloomed strong and fragrant all year round.

“Well done,” he said, clenching his fist around the stem. The thorns dug into his flesh, and he turned his hand so that the blood dripped down onto the ground, seeping into the dirt, fuel for their everlasting blooms. “A gift, then, for the loveliest garden outside of the palace.”

Shan stared at the blood, even though all she wanted was to run. The King’s strange attempts at kindness unnerved her—Blood Workers were normally so careful with their own blood, aware of how powerful even a single drop was. But this King? He spilled it for her on a whim, gracing her roses with power most would kill to taste. “Thank you.”

He nodded, as if he had given her a great boon, then dropped the rose to the ground, stamping it into the earth under his heel. The cuts were already healed and gone, as if they had never been there at all.

Then he was walking again, and she had to hurry to catch up. “Still, Your Majesty, I must thank you for attending tonight. I didn’t expect it.”

“But of course,” the King replied. “I simply had to see you after such a sudden coup. I’ve had my eye on you for years, girl, though I was surprised to see you make your move so soon.”

She stopped cold, and as he turned to look back at her, she saw the first bit of true emotion on his face. A knowing smirk. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t play coy, Shan, it doesn’t become you.” He caught her chin in his hand, tilting her face up so that he could look her in the eyes. “I know everything that happens in this country. Your father was a tenacious, paranoid bastard who clung to life with a stubbornness that always frustrated me. But it seems the fool should have watched his own house.”

Shan considered her options. Denial? Shock? Anger? No. None of that would do. She held her head high and smiled. “My father was an idiot, and he nearly ruined the LeClaires. I swear to do better.”

The King inclined his head to her, the closest thing she had ever seen him give to honoring someone else. “I’m sure you will, my dear. I’ll be watching.” Their turn around the garden finished, he disappeared back inside, slipping through the shocked crowd. He did not linger—his mission complete, he cut through the crowds and headed straight for the door.

“He’s like that,” a quiet voice murmured, and she turned to find Isaac de la Cruz, the Royal Blood Worker and her once dearest friend, standing in the shadows of the garden. He lifted his cigarette to his lips, its burning tip a small, bright light in the darkness. “He steamrolls you then leaves you to pull yourself back together.”

He dropped the cigarette, stamping it out under his heel, and stepped forward. Shan didn’t know what to do, so she clamped her hands behind her back and stood tall, her face expressionless.

He wasn’t supposed to be here.

He was the same and different all at once. She traced the familiar features with her eyes, the Tagalan heritage they both shared imprinted in her memories, as she catalogued every change. The line of his jaw, now a bit broader and peppered with the beginnings of a beard. His dark, soft hair, now longer and curlier. His dark eyes, just a bit colder, shuttered. His rich, burnt gold skin, looking a little pale and wan, as if he hadn’t seen the sun in weeks.

He was so achingly handsome, grown into his skin in a way that she wished she had been there to see. But his smile was the same, quirked up a little on one side in the way that made her heart ache. “I’ve missed you, my dear Lady LeClaire.”

Shan felt a pang, deep in her stomach. As much as she was still angry at Isaac, even after all these years, she did miss him. Their constant battles, pushing and pulling each other to be better. Their schemes and their games. The way they were the only ones who understood each other when their classmates had shunned them for their foreignness. In all of the great melting pot of Aeravin, it seemed a miracle that she had found someone so like her.

Once she had been closer to him than anyone else in this misbegotten world. She had held his hand as he whispered truths in her ear, as he claimed a new name that fit him better than the one his parents gave him, as he began treatments that would shape his form to match the boy he knew himself to be. Through it all, she had been there, a rock for him to lean on.

But then they graduated, and when he was offered the chance to join the King’s cadre, a handful of students selected from each graduating class to be part of his personal team of scholars, he had dropped her like she had meant nothing.

Like they had meant nothing, despite all the secrets and fears and dreams they had once whispered to each other.

So instead of embracing him, Shan shrugged casually, as if that wound wasn’t as raw and aching as it was when he first inflicted it. “What are titles between us, old friend?”

“Old friends indeed,” Isaac said, glancing away. Guilty. “It’s been a while. Much has changed.”