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“Please let me stand beside you,” Lope continued. “To keep you safe.”

I pulled back from her, rubbing the warm place on my arm where her hand had once been. “I’m going to look like a fool up there, Lope. I won’t ask that of you.”

“I do not fear looking foolish,” she said. “It’s you I fear for.”

Her protectiveness for me—was it out of love? Or merely duty?

“All right,” I murmured.

Facing the party again, the bright decadence, the golden light that seemed to be emanating from the throne as if thesun itself were sitting there—it was like I was facing my own future. Beneath the glow of the chandelier, the throne’s silhouette was cast six times on the parquet, almost like the points of a compass or the halos artists would paint around the heads of the gods.

Like a needle through a pleat of silk, I pierced the crowd of nobles and stepped one foot onto the empty parquet, the sanctum around the throne.

Behind me, people gasped and whispered, a shocked hush settling over the court. I heard one woman tell me to get back in my place, but I could not. I would not.

I took another step toward the throne. Now some of the dancers had noticed. They halted their movements, glaring at me.

Another step. The dais was ten feet away now. I still could not quite see the king but in profile, thanks to the soldiers on either side of him. The soldier at his right shoulder, blocking my view, caught sight of me and gripped his rapier.

Oh, gods, I thought,please help me, wherever you are.

As I walked closer, the guard murmured something into the king’s ear, and he leaned forward, turning to catch a glance—atme.

A dark eye. Pure white hair, bright as moonlight, resting in waves over his shoulders. The king tipped his head, whispering something back to the guard.

In a blink, the soldier was walking toward me. Lopeshoved herself in front of me, her arm barricading me from the man.

“Mademoiselle,” he said, looking me in the eyes, “His Majesty requests an audience with you.”

An icy wind swept through me. “He—me?”

He offered his arm to me, stepping between Lope and myself. “Right this way.”

I reached around him. My pulse quickened as I saw the fear in Lope’s eyes. “Please, let her come with me—”

“His Majesty’s orders. Just you.”

“If she needs me, I’ll go with her,” Lope said.

Now the courtiers’ whispers had turned to murmurs and jeers.

“If you want to see the king,” the soldier said, “do as His Majesty requests.”

I wanted her beside me. I felt like half of myself without her. And seeing her so distressed anguished me. But this could be my final chance to find an answer as to my mother’s whereabouts.

“I’ll be right back,” I promised Lope.

She withdrew her hand, standing back obediently. She even bowed her head to me, a servant following a courtier’s orders.

Perhaps Ihadmisjudged her tenderness toward me.

The soldier touched my back, guiding me ever closer to the king. All of the world seemed to fade. Somewhere far,far away, the music played, dancers’ shoes tapped against the floor, partygoers laughed.

When I looked at the king’s face, my heart fell.

The man before me was only a few years older than I was—far too young to have known my mother, certainly, and far too young to be my father. But... I thought of the strange rumors I had heard in the marketplaces growing up, the whispered stories of the gods-blessed king. The king that had been blessed with eternal youth.

Was it a trick of some kind? His son or a double or...