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I remembered him sitting at the throne, shadows below him splayed out like the points of a star. Yet something in me doubted. His throne was ornate, his clothes more so, and the room crowded. Couldn’t the shadows have been any manner of things?

On the other hand, not an hour ago he told me he’d been given eternal youth, and I believed him in a blink.

“How could that be?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But this place, the darkness here, the Shadows’ path throughout the years—your mother disappearing—it all seems connected somehow.”

It did.

Mother had always said that this place was dangerous. Butit was so beautiful. She had said this place was cruel. But the king, he was so kind....

Yet did any of that matter if my mother was not with me?

“The king forbade me from going to see my mother,” I murmured.

Lope frowned. “How could he forbid such a thing? After all you’ve been through—”

“He says it’s because she’s too ill.” My stomach began to ache with worry all over again. All the brightness and hope and happiness the king had thrown over me like stardust—it was fading away. Something ugly and dark was left in its absence. “I’m so frightened for her, Lo.”

Lope’s hands held tight to mine. “You will see her again soon,” she said. Her eyes held an unbreakable promise.

My heart thrilled at her calloused fingers carefully cradling my hands. When she was so near, when she looked at me, I felt so safe. So certain.

Everything would be all right. Lope would make it so.

Her lips parted, but she seemed to reconsider whatever it was she wanted to whisper to me in that darkened alcove. My breath snagged in my throat as I waited. And my stare caught on her lips, rose gold in the candlelight. Her thumb swept in a slow, careful arc against my hand. I could no longer hold back; I swept her into my arms in an embrace.

I felt like a star, bursting with light, tucked safely within some darkness outside of time, outside of trouble. I alwaysfelt that way with her. Once more, I allowed myself to imagine her standing in the waves, the salty air tugging at her silvery hair. When she’d give me one of those rare smiles. And Mother would be there, and she’d be well, and she’d say,You really love her, Ofelia.

12

Lope

In these gilded halls,

I am no more than a ghost,

Heard but never heeded;

A girl without a name.

In the morning, Ofelia was summoned to breakfast with the king. I was not invited, but Ofelia steadfastly refused to be separated from me. The maids relented to her insistence that I join, and to my relief, they led us both out to the gardens.

We walked the gravel paths of the parterres, surrounded by swirling hedges and flowerbeds, until we were along the eastern facade of the palace. I was mid-stride when Ofelia gasped and caught my arm. My heart quickened, and I reached for the sword that wasn’t there as I followed her gaze.

The breath left my lungs.

Before us, sloping gently into the horizon, the grand canal glowed in the morning light like a road made of gold. Set between us and the canal was a large white-and-gold fountain spraying plumes of water into the air. A dreamy mist hovered over the gardens and made it such that the forests of linden trees looked almost like green mountains in the distance.

No etching could capture so marvelous a view. And yet here it was, hidden away from the rest of the kingdom for only the nobility to enjoy.

I longed to stand there for hours, simply gaping at the majesty of these gardens, but my moment of peace was interrupted when the king called out for Ofelia.

He was in the same parterre, not far from where we stood. He sat at a small table covered in plates of fruit and pastries. Immediately, I glanced at his shadow—but today, a maid held a parasol over his head while he ate. There was only the silhouette of the table, the girl, and the parasol cast onto the gravel.

“Dearest!” cried the king as we approached. He rose to his feet to take Ofelia’s hand. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

“Everything is perfect,” she assured him softly.