Page 19

Faint creaks echo as I lift the trapdoor; my hands shake and my pulse races as I peer inside. Slats of wood and squares framed by dust.

I crouch, feeling in the shadows as if the books I’d been hiding there might reappear with wishful thinking. I put them back; I always put them back. What...

My mind races. If the luminists found them, I’m dead. If Father found them, I’m even deader. Either way, my dream of becoming a vitalian ends here.

“Cael!” Akilah barges in with a bang of the door against the wall. “Quick,” she says. “Your father—”

The trapdoor slams shut at my feet.

Does he know? “What kind of mood is he in?”

Akilah grimaces. “The kind where we all get very busy with our chores.”

My heart sinks lower.

The air is heavy with the scent of rain. The manor, once grand, is fringed with decay; faded murals whisper stories of a prouder past as we rush through the courtyards, our footsteps slapping against wet cobblestone. In the timeworn front yard, Father waits, his grim gaze shadowing over me.

“Follow, son.”

Akilah gulps and leaves me with “Good luck,” an unconvinced whisper.

My pulse quickens. Each step into Father’s study feels heavier than the last.

He knows.

He sits behind his parchment-cluttered desk, and I haul a lungful of ink and mustiness deep into my lungs.

“It’s time to discuss your marriage, Cael.”

I snap my head up. Not the conversation I was expecting.

But it’s worse.

“I’m too young.”

“Our king married at twenty-one. If he can, so can you.”

“Our king has a royal bloodline to protect. It’s understandable—”

“We have an entire household to protect! I let you put this off until Megaera came of age. She’s eighteen now. You’ll do the marriage rites immediately.”

Anxious heat thickens in my chest. I keep my voice firm. Steady. “I don’t love her.”

Father slams his fist on his desk, making the inkpot jump and loose papers shiver. “Love? What would you know of love? Love is a luxury.”

He’s not wrong. What do I know of love? My entire romantic experience... an accidental campout with someone so far above me he might as well be a star, when we were barely out of childhood. And a series of chance encounters with an infuriating man who never showed me his real face. The vanishing man. The man who left me behind over and over until finally, he never came back at all. What would I know. But still— “Should I pretend to be happy the rest of our lives?”

“Pretend hard enough, and you might believe it.”

I rock back on my heels; my voice cracks. “I need the real thing. I want it.”

Father points to a polished box on the edge of his desk. “Half of her dowry is gone to pay our taxes. That’s what we want. Whatweneed.”

“You didwhat? How much?”

“One hundred pieces.”

One hundred!