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“You have rooms for this dead family?”

“House Ravenwood were constant faces in the palace. They werequite close to my family line.” Destin flashed his white grin, a boyish look of pride on his sharp face.

My insides tightened.Not yet, you arrogant prince.

His fingers bore coils and black ink, and in the spiral of visions and voices, there was a voice too much like my own that had called someoneprince. Someone who’d . . . who’d been planning to make me his wife. Even Hugo had pointed out the markings on my fingers.

It didn’t mean anything.

Destin was not the only man in the room who had inked fingers.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek, unwilling, perhaps too afraid, to confess what I’d heard in front of Destin. How would I even begin? Strangeness filled every inch of this place. Like a curtain was pulled between what they knew and the actual truth.

Time. All I needed was a bit of time to think and figure out how to move forward.

Destin called for a guard. “Take Lady Adira to the North Tower. She is to have anything she needs. Send for new gowns and clothes for her wardrobe by the morning.”

“Yes, Highness.” The guard dipped his chin and opened one arm, gesturing for me to step into the corridor.

Destin used the linen cloth to pick up the arm ring and return it to the wooden pallet. “I will keep watch on this until after the flames.”

I could not explain the tension in my chest, a sort of lashing bitterness at the thought of anyone keeping the band from me. Destin gently took hold of my hand. His touch was warm, kind, secure. It didn’t feel unsafe, it felt welcoming.

But it wasn’t the same as the fiery kisses against my fingers in the whirlwind.

Such a simple action, even in the chaos of the vision, had lit my heart aflame. An obsession took root, a desperation to feel such a touch again and again.

“I swear to you, Lady Adira,” Destin whispered. “You are safe here. You won’t be left in the dark any longer. Together, we will restore your abilities, and you will once more be the protector and savior of Magiaria.”

I didn’t want to be a savior. I didn’t want any of this. But fatigue, fear, whatever it was, guided my first step after the guard.

The only glance I spared belonged to the prince’s brother. He studied me, peeled my skin back and saw my deepest secrets with his dark, granite eyes.

I returned his glare with my own. He was a liar. A wolf hidden in the walls of a glittering palace, and he wasn’t to be trusted.

The guard led me up a wide flight of wooden stairs covered in woven carpets. Along the walls were iron sconces with black candles and bubbled glass surrounding the colorful flames. Blossoms of pinks and greens and bloody orange filled vases on wooden tables when we stepped through an archway into a new wing of the palace. Canvases painted with hills, meadows, midnight purple skies, and raging waterfalls over black rocks, marked the spaces between numerous doorways.

“This corridor will lead you to the main chamber, Milady,” said the guard. “I will stand watch from here. You won’t be disturbed.”

Without a word, he turned his back to me, at attention, heels clicked together.

I licked my cracked lips and made my way down the corridor until a deep doorway came into view.

My heart stuttered.

There, leaning against the thick beams of the door, was the prince’s brother. He stared at his knuckles. “Lady.”

His words were spoken with such a bite, an ache burned through my middle.

“How did you get here so fast?”

“You don’t expect me to give up all my secrets.”

My jaw clenched. “I was told I wouldn’t be disturbed. Move.”

“What manners you have.” He dropped his hand, a smirk curved in the corner of his mouth. “Almost like you weren’t raised within one of the finest families.”

“I wasn’t,” I insisted. “At least not that I can remember, so I’d watch your back, Thief.”