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Chapter Twenty-Three

C opelan doesn’t come for me the next day. No one does, not even Illian, though I suppose he’s content for now. I completed his task.

Annais is also gone. I assume she’s with the other seamsters, but I do find it strange that I haven’t seen her at all since last night. But she’s the last of my worries right now.

My body feels wrecked. My world tilts and sways, and I have so much to sort through: the prophecy, Illian’s plans, Anton’s intent. When I remember the way Laurent looked at me, another spike of nausea climbs my throat.

So I lie in bed, not bothering with food, not bothering to find Copelan and practice. He no doubt saw what I did. There’s no telling what he thinks of me now. If anything, I’m sure it’s provoked his ire. Again.

That evening, the sound of soft footfalls draws my attention, especially when they pause at my door. I brace for a harsh knock, for Copelan’s voice. It isn’t until the lock pops open and the door stretches wide that I realize who it is.

His breath gives him away.

Does he know where I’ve been? I curl into my pillow and pretend I am asleep.

Will he graze my jaw? Brush his knuckles against my hair? He might not touch me while I’m awake, but what about while I sleep?

Something lowers onto the table next to my bed. The tread of his steps fade after that.

I wait until I’m sure he’s gone, then turn to see what it is: a small platter of fruit and nuts, along with his signature card, one he doesn’t bother to sign.

Eat, Vasalie.

I ignore it and fall asleep.

The next morning, Annais has yet to return.

I force myself to consume a meager meal and rise from bed.

My exertion and anxiety have well and truly drained me, like sand in an hourglass, thieving both my time and my strength.

There’s so little left these days. My endurance grows thinner with each week, and I wonder if that’s forever.

If this feeling, this exhaustion, is part of me now, a permanent crack in my being.

A crack that, with each passing day, widens a little more.

I twine my fingers into my hair, gathering it into a quick plait, which I fiddle with nervously as I enter the Dance Hall.

My gaze immediately tracks to Copelan as he directs one of the younger troupes through a new routine.

When he notices me, a shroud falls over his face, his lips stretching taut.

He resumes his focus, perfecting their choreography until their practice ends.

The dancers depart in a flurry of whispers, and I’m not oblivious to the shape of my name on their lips or the way they shuffle their gazes between Copelan and me.

I almost forgot he kissed me before the whole souls-damned palace. It feels like a lifetime ago.

I can’t get you out of my head. I can’t wash you from my skin.

“Vas,” Copelan says.

“We need to plan about our next performance,” I say, hoping to dodge any talk of the other night.

He blows out a breath. “Right. Yes.”

The air is thick and strange like a room full of steam; I don’t know how to navigate it.

And it stays that way throughout our session.

We try to conjure a new dance for the week’s end, this time in honor of Serai, but it’s far from spectacular and we both know it.

Neither of our heads are present. Neither of us wants to get close.

“Maybe it would help if we see the location,” he says, swiping a hand across his damp, ivory locks.

“It isn’t in the Dome Hall?”

“The Sky Garden, actually.”

The Sky Garden is near the northernmost wing. I’ve heard talk of it, but I’ve avoided it thus far, considering that the Brisendali court resides nearby. The last thing I want is to run into my father.

“I don’t think it necessary to visit,” I start, but Copelan is already moving.

“Unless you have another idea,” he says over his shoulder, “we need any inspiration we can get.”

I hate that he’s right. Serai, a western country across the sea, is a mystery.

Not many are invited in, even fewer are allowed to tour.

They aren’t inhospitable, exactly, but there isn’t much to see without mounds of paperwork.

Their cities are guarded by twenty-foot walls.

It costs a fortune to dock at their ports.

They are protective, and I can’t blame them for it.

Silence trails Copelan and me through the halls of the northern wing until I catch a glimpse of the Sky Garden in the distance.

It hangs over the ocean, a platform of marble.

A glass dome shields it from the rough ocean winds, but open pockets still allow for airflow.

Gulls flit in and out, clustering on the trees beneath.

When we reach it, a gale sweeps in, disheveling my plait.

The space inside the dome is enormous, crawling with wisteria. Beds of amaryllis, hibiscus, and lotus carpet the ground between walkways, along with other flora unique to Anell. An intoxicating mix of nectar-sweet scents spirals around me, and for the first time, I take a full, satisfying breath.

And though a few courtiers linger, congregating underneath arbors, the magnitude of the place makes it feel as if we’re alone.

Copelan leads me underneath a flowering willow, its strands swaying in the breeze.

I slip through, lavender petals whisking about my feet, and then we come across a large, trickling fountain—

I halt, and Copelan almost rams into my back.

In the center stands the ever-famous Fate of Morta.

Unlike in Illian’s palace, she isn’t crafted from marble; rather, she’s made entirely of obsidian glass, her dress veined like a butterfly’s wing. Water escapes from her cupped hands, almost as if she’s trying to grasp it but can’t.

Copelan plants himself at the bottom of the stairs, so lost in thought that I decide not to disturb him. I wander instead in another direction.

He bounds up and grabs my arm. “Vas.”

I turn, a question in my eyes.

He wets his lips, like he isn’t sure where to begin.

He shoves a hand through his hair, then, with the other still holding my arm, pulls me against his chest. It surprises me so much that I stand there for a minute, arms dangling, until the familiar warmth of his embrace draws an exhale from my lungs.

My eyes begin to sting and the emotions of the past few days catch up to me, siphoning my strength. I press hard against him, clutching his sides.

I thought he was through with me, through with the mess I leave wherever I go. Instead, he breathes against my hair, his thumb rubbing the small of my back.

I know this is wrong, but I need his comfort. “What happened the other night—”

“We’ll discuss it later,” he whispers, breathing into my hair. “We will figure it out.”

How I wish I could tell him everything; I wish it so much my mind aches holding it in. The other night, I’d wished Anton had seen it, too. For a moment, I swear he did. The enormity of my past, the way I’m suffocating beneath it, the way my chains grow denser, heavier, each day.

And I’m so afraid. Not just of Illian, but of myself. My ability to disappoint Emilia, to not rectify the past.

Most of all, I fear my own body—a body I no longer understand.

I fear the time might come when the pain is too great, my fatigue too deep, that I can no longer move, let alone dance. I sometimes think the only thing holding me upright is grit. Dogged determination. Because if I can’t dance, I am not useful to Illian.

Copelan tilts my chin, watching me now. I wonder what he would do if I indeed gave him my truths. He already knows about my father. What would he do if he knew the rest?

But no, I couldn’t. I recall Anton’s warnings, Illian’s threats. I am watching you, always.

The truth of it seals my lips yet again.

Still, I can’t seem to break away, so we stay in this embrace until voices cleave through our reverie, splitting us apart.

“Copelan, my, what a timely surprise.” Princess Aesir parts the willow branches like a curtain, her lips tipped up in a lupine grin.

“Princess,” Copelan replies, his tone surprisingly flat. We give a short bow, in sync.

She sweeps her braid over her shoulder, looking more Brisendali than ever with an ultramarine tunic and leggings plated in silver-embellished leather.

The princess of a kingdom preparing for war. Why she feels the need to show it here is unclear. Unless she plans to fork some fish from the sea, the ensemble is entirely ridiculous.

“It so happens that we were coming to find you,” she’s telling Copelan. “I was told you might be here.”

Copelan scratches his head. “We?”

Another wind blows through, and I rub my arms against the chill.

“Yes, we,” she says, blinking innocently. She glances about, seemingly looking for someone who should be there.

Then a woman with raven hair and moon-white skin slips into view.

I recognize her instantly.

Esmée Fontaine looks just as she did all those years ago: simple yet beautiful, slender and elegant with her bowed lips and big eyes, cheekbones carved to perfection. I search her willowy frame for evidence of her injury, when she snapped her wrist before Illian, but find none.

Illian’s former favored dancer, one of the most revered women in all of Miridran, is here.

She does not notice me. Instead, she offers Copelan a wistful smile. I follow her gaze, an odd feeling in my belly, only to find him as still as the statue over my shoulder.

And it hits me then, who she is to him.

I had a partner my first year here, he had told me. It didn’t end well for her.

The Gathering, nine years ago.

She involved herself with a Crown.

Esmée was Copelan’s partner. Then, nine years ago, at the Gathering, she captured Illian’s eye. Illian, not Anton, like I had assumed. And Illian took her away, took her for himself, and Copelan never saw her again.

Until now.

But no one could enter the isle once the Gathering had begun unless all the crowns agreed. How had they managed?

“Esmée,” Copelan breathes. He says her name like it’s the answer to a long, unanswered prayer. “How, why—”