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Alvira raises an eyebrow. “Spit it out.”

“I fear they have grown… weary.”

Accompanying Chen’s comment, the distant chanting of the Mecca grows louder. It swells quite inconveniently.

Long live Sabar… Long live Sabar…

“Their houses have been ransacked. Their businesses disturbed. I fear that further efforts in this endeavour may create an unwelcome stir,” Chen continues delicately, as if the stirring hadn’t already given way to a rising mutiny.

Alvira’s molars clack together.

Ruby clears her throat at Alvira’s side. “The continued search for Sabar need not include the disruption of peace in the Mecca,” she says now. It is most annoying to hear how strong her voice is, how wilful, when Alvira’s specific instructions had been to clobber the willoutof her. “The search of the Mecca is fruitless. Sabar is unlikely to be found there. It is the Ledge she seeks,” Ruby says assuredly. “If we wish to find Dawsyn Sabar, then we would do well to look there.”

Alvira turns her shoulders until she is facing Ruby. The girl has always been tenacious – it was obvious from her initiation into the guard. But she was never petulant. Never stupid. People hear conviction in a woman’s voice and call it conceit or more often bitterness, but Alvira hears it for what it is – power.

She no longer sees power when she looks at Ruby. Instead, she sees a snake. A viper that sheds its skin when it likes, slithering back into the cracks and crevices when it meets a more forceful strike.

Ruby is not a woman of power; she is a pest.

Alvira laughs at the suggestion.Go to the Ledge indeed!“If she has gone to the Ledge,” she says, tapping the chains that still clad Ruby’s wrists – a firm reminder of her tenuous seat at this table. “Then she isexactlywhere I want her.”

“Your Majesty!” The doors to the meeting room ricochet off the walls as they collide, having been thrown open by a footman. He appears out of breath, as though he ran the corridors.

“Mother above,” Cressida gasps, clutching her chest. “Treecher! How dare–”

“It is urgent,” Treecher gasps, eyes wide and haunted.

Alvira stands. Ice trickles down her spine.

“The King of Glacia is here,” the footman continues, ignoring the gasps around the table. “Adrik.”

Fear floods Queen Alvira’s stomach. “Here? Now?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Alvira turns to her wife. She wears an expression that likely mirrors her own. One of sickening dread. “Get out,” she says abruptly to the room. “Now.”

Chen and his advisories snatch their maps from the table and practically fall through the doorway without bothering to bow their heads to her as they leave. Ruby makes to follow.

“Notyou,”Alvira barks. “Youwill remain. Should this beast come for blood, it will be you I offer first.”

Ruby’s eyes darken in response, but she does not argue. She bows her head politely, then returns to her place at the table, without the decency of even appearing afraid.

“Well, well,” comes a voice ahead of the creature. It steals down the hall and into the meeting room, as unnatural as its owner. “What a fine home you keep.”

The creature turns the corner, his frame filling the entire doorway. Flanked on his sides are two others, just as tall and menacing.

Immediately, Alvira is transported back to that fateful night five decades ago, when a king named Vasteel broke through the glass ceiling of the throne room and snapped the Sabar King’s neck. Vasteel’s skin had been just as translucent, his hair just as startlingly white. Though his wings, admittedly, had been a sight bigger, and clear of troublesome abrasions.

In fact, this Glacian before her appeared… battered. It was hardly several months ago that Adrik had visited the palace and pronounced himself the new Glacian King. His skin hadn’t been so colourless then, nor his hair.

He has transformed,Alvira thinks. One look to her right tells her that Cressida has deduced the same.

Alvira hears an intake of breath, and from her periphery, sees Ruby’s chest rising and falling. But not with fear, with anger.

Mother above, but the snake is moronic. Adrik will snap her like a twig if he spies her boldness.

“King Adrik,” Alvira intones carefully, and is relieved to hear that her voice does not shake. “What a surprise.”