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Alie kept her hands on Lore’s shoulders when they parted, eyebrow cocked. “Please tell me you were invited to the eclipse ball and the dinner afterward? It will be dreadfully boring, otherwise. At least, I assume so. It’s not like I’ve gone to one before.” She giggled. “My father has always insisted that we attend all-night vigils in the sanctuary during eclipses. This is the first time he’s allowed us to do something livelier.”

It would be rude to shove bread in her mouth to keep from answering. Still, Lore contemplated it for a moment. “We were,” she said finally.

The mistake of using we wasn’t clear to her until Alie’s eyes brightened. We, meaning she and Gabe. Gabe, for whom Alie still held a guttering candle. Gabe, who’d come to Lore’s room and kissed her like a dying man before disappearing.

Her smile was very hard to hold.

“Oh, thank all the gods.” Alie’s hands fell; she half turned to pick up an apple and polished it on her gown before taking a bite. “If I had to spend all night with the King and my father, I’d go raving mad.”

“Are those the only people attending?” Lore’s hands clawed around her plate, her taste for peahen suddenly gone. “Just August and your family?”

If so, that would obliterate any chance of coincidence.

Alie took a moment to swallow, unwilling to speak around a mouthful of apple. Courtly manners. “Not quite,” she said, after a sip of wine to wash it down. “There were quite a few people invited to the ball. As for the dinner: Anton will be there, of course. And a few others. But it’s going to be a quiet affair, apparently. Very exclusive.” She leaned in a bit closer, like she didn’t want to be overheard. “Bri didn’t get invited to the dinner portion, though Dani and her family did. Not that Bri is complaining; there’s a huge party happening at Fabian Beauchamp’s estate outside of the city, so she’s taking a carriage over there after the ball.” The wistfulness in her voice said she’d much rather be at that party than August’s. Lore couldn’t blame her.

“But we’ll have a good time, if you and me and Gabe and Bastian are all there.” Alie’s smile widened when she said Gabe’s name, just a bit. “Bastian can liven up even the most boring court functions. He’ll make sure it isn’t dull.” She took another sip of wine and moved away. “I have to go to my piano lesson, but send me a note when you have a free afternoon! We still need a croquet rematch, I hope you’ve been practicing!”

Then she was gone, weaving between the courtiers in their afternoon finery, leaving Lore with a plate full of food she didn’t really want anymore but couldn’t bear to waste. With a sigh, she started back toward her room.

Whatever the eclipse ball would be, she was sure dull wouldn’t qualify.

Lore walked quickly to the carpeted steps leading back up to her turret, head down. So she didn’t see August until the Sainted King cleared his throat.

She froze, hands full of china plate and heaped vegetables. Panic spasmed through her chest; she dipped her head and bent her knees in a truncated curtsy, hiding her face in case it spasmed through her expression, too. “Your Majesty.”

He looked… awful. Deep shadows stood out around his eyes, his skin pale and almost clammy looking, as if a fever had recently broken. There was a slight, tired stoop in his shoulders, but it didn’t diminish his presence, and she still felt herself standing up straighter as he narrowed his eyes.

August didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “You’ve been spending time with my son?”

His mouth wrenched on the word son, like it was something disgusting he had to spit out.

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Lore nodded, brows drawing together. “We’re following your orders to the letter.”

Considering that the orders had never gotten more specific, she wasn’t even lying.

“Good.” The King fumbled at his waist, pulling that thin flask from within his doublet and taking a hearty drink. “There will be a resolution soon. The whelp will finally get what he deserves.”

Then the Sainted King pushed past her, breath reeking of belladonna. He didn’t say goodbye.

Lore stared after him for a moment before wearily mounting the steps to her room.

Lore sat at her window and waited for the sky to darken. There was a smear across the glass, one that hadn’t been there yesterday; either from sweat-rumpled fabric or a grasping hand. She scrubbed it away as the clock on the wall ticked by the time, inching ever closer to midnight.

Gabe was still gone. She’d stopped listening for him in the halls. She wondered if he’d moved back into his cloister. Back to walls that would keep him safe from himself, from all the things he wanted that he’d been taught were sin. Surely Anton would relent after he confessed that he’d nearly broken his vows for a poison-running necromancer.

It set an ache in her gut sharp as a bayonet’s end. Lore tried to reason it away. It wasn’t like she hadn’t done the same thing before—played hot and cold, ultimately decided on cold. It didn’t have to mean anything.

Still.

She shook her head like she could knock him out of it, closed her eyes. It’d be better to spend this time actually preparing for what would happen at midnight, rather than worrying over a monk who’d seemingly decided she wasn’t worth his questionable salvation.

Instead, she concentrated on her forest, the wall she’d built around her mind to keep out the awareness of death. She concentrated on close trunks and interlaced branches and the subtle weave of smoke beyond her trees, black against an azure sky, thick as if something was always burning.

The minute hand of the clock ticked toward twelve. As soon as it reached its zenith, a knock came on the door.

Lore stood up. Tried not to think about what waited for her down in the stone garden, where the catacombs seethed their darkness.

Bastian stood in the corridor, dressed all in black. The Bleeding God’s Heart sconce was full of candles on the wall at his back, outlining him in hellish light and hiding the vagaries of his expression. She could see his eyes, though, a dark glitter, and there was nothing playful in them. Tonight’s Bastian was all business. “Ready for a chat with the dead?”