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I paused for a moment and looked up from my book. She had stopped scrubbing her skin and now hugged her knees to her chest. “I wish for invincibility,” I said. “It seems more practical.”

Though no longer guaranteed, apparently.

I set my book aside.

“Why don’t you tell me who you are?” I said.

Safira straightened. “What do you mean?”

“You are angry like I am angry,” I said. “Why? Where did you come from? How did you end up as a vassal?”

“I suppose I am like anyone who just wants to survive in this world,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

She shrugged. “My family is very poor, and I thought I could come here and make money to send back. And I did, for a while.”

“Will you seek to become a vassal once more?” I asked.

Her gaze returned to mine. “Am I allowed?”

“I do not see why you wouldn’t. It is nothing that will interfere with your role as my lady’s maid,” I said.

She shook her head. “I still do not understand why you chose me.”

“Because you have a use,” I said and leaned forward in my chair. “Before my coronation, someone in this castle poisoned me. Only a few days ago, Adrian’s fish were also poisoned.Someonewithin these walls is a traitor. I want you to find them.”

I chose not to explain how Adrian and I suspected one of his four closest advisors of treason because I did not wish Safira to know of the bloodletting or its consequences. It was knowledge I did not trust her to have.

“Outside these doors, you are to gather information and follow any hint of treason. You are to report only to me—no one else. Not even Adrian. Am I clear?”

With anything of this nature, I felt the fewer who knew the truth the better. I thought of Adrian’s earlier words—once the truth is spoken, it always seems to find its target. I expected her to question why I wished to keep Adrian ignorant, but that was not her worry.

“You trust me?” she asked. “To do this?”

“Not at all,” I said, rising with my book. “This is how you earn my trust.”

Safira finished bathing, and I gave her a nightgown to change into, sending her down the hall to one of the guest suites for the evening.

Once she was gone, I settled on my bed and began to study the spell book, specifically, the various shapes I could use to summon and bind magic.

Each shape has a frequency, an assigned energy. Alone, a circle, an oval, a triangle, are sacred symbols. Together, they are a language that makes up a spell.

This language had a range of power based on how the shapes were layered and intertwined. With this type of casting, no words were needed. I found myself mindlessly tracing the shapes into the air while I continued to read—a circle first and several triangles within.

“A summoning spell,” said a voice. “Well, aren’t you quite the novice.”

I looked up, locking eyes with Ravena who hovered in my mirror. I searched for changes in her—a difference in her hair color, aging in her face, a withered limb, signs that she might have performed spells fromThe Book of Dis, but she looked much the same—ginger-colored hair and narrow eyes, her skin stippled with freckles.

“You.” My voice quaked, and I rose from my bed, snatching my blade from the side table. She laughed as I armed myself.

“I plan to build a throne from your bones,” I said.

“Perhaps that is what I should do with yours and the rest of High Coven’s.”

“It makes sense that you would need our magic. You were never quite as powerful.”

Ravena smiled, narrowed her eyes, and suddenly, I felt a grip on my neck and I was lifted off the ground. The impact against my throat made me want to vomit, but I couldn’t even if I tried. I was slowly suffocating.