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Cold silence reigned through my mind. I must have hurt its feelings. Probably not good to piss off an ancient Fae artifact.

I’m sorry , I tried again. I have no intention of abandoning you for long, but I will do what I must to get free of this place. Once I’m outside of these walls, I’ll be in a better position to plan how to fix all of this.

More silence.

Before I could make another attempt at soothing the crown—something I hadn’t anticipated being on my list of problems to solve—footsteps came from outside the hall.

Vail’s eyes met mine from across the room.

From where he was standing, there was no way he could see who was coming, but he’d likely caught their scent, and he didn’t look happy.

A second later, I knew why when a stunning woman with golden blonde hair and tanned skin stepped into the room.

At her side was an equally attractive man with light brown hair and chiseled features.

I’d had the unpleasant experience of conversing with both of them in the past. They were high-ranking courtiers of House Corvinus.

Not advisors exactly but they were close friends of Mora and Darius Corvinus—the Heads of the House.

The two courtiers were also Kieran’s parents.

“Davon. Narcisa.” My aunt rose and greeted the two newcomers. “We didn’t expect you until this afternoon. Please join us.”

“I think we have everything we need to get started, Carmilla—I mean, my queen,” the fair-haired advisor at the table corrected herself. The other advisor glanced at Carmilla in panic, as if he expected my aunt to lash out.

She just smiled. “Thank you both for meeting with me. If you can have the information to me by tomorrow morning, I would appreciate it.”

“O-of course,” the woman stammered before both advisors practically ran from the table. Kieran’s parents observed everything with amused smiles.

I watched them go and pondered the conversation I’d been trying to keep track of while the crown had infiltrated my mind.

My aunt was interested in how many gemstones the Sovereign House possessed, as well as a best guess to what the other Houses had.

We relied on those stones to power the wards that kept the wraiths and other nasty beasts out of our Houses and outposts.

Why was she specifically interested in the numbers now though? Most of the Houses tried to keep best estimates of what the others had because it gave them an advantage during trade negotiations, but I didn’t know what Carmilla was plotting.

It was too much. Everything was too fucking much.

Vail’s betrayal. Carmilla’s coup. That bloody crown.

My heart raced as I tried and failed to calm myself.

I was imprisoned by my last surviving family member.

Someone I cared about very much was also imprisoned, and any day now, they could decide he was no longer worth the risk of keeping around.

Carmilla could order the death of Draven, and I wouldn’t know until it was too late. Cold, icy fear gripped my heart. I could lose him.

I tried to pick up my tea again, but my movements were so jerky that I knocked it over instead. It was a red tea blend, and it soaked into the creamy tablecloth like rusty blood. Before I knew what I was doing, I was on my feet and backing away from the table.

Apparently, this was the moment my mind decided to snap under the pressure of everything that had happened over the past two weeks. Ragged breaths tore from my throat. All I could think about was Draven chained up in the throne room the day we’d been captured.

Demetri stabbing him through the chest.

I could have lost him that day. I could still lose him. Magic so different from my Moroi nature rumbled to life, and?—

Breath, young queen , the crown ordered. All is not lost yet. And you will bring the roof down on our heads if you don’t stop—not to mention on your lover in the basement.

The magic died down instantly, but not before I felt it brush against that strange connection I had recently formed with Draven. For a few seconds, I could have sworn I felt his steady heartbeat down it. I had no idea what this was between us, but I grabbed on to it like a lifeline to calm down.

Kieran’s parents glanced at me, eyebrows raised as they made their way to the table, but didn’t comment.

Carmilla’s steady gaze fell on me from where she’d already reclaimed her seat, but before I could come up with some excuse for my outburst, Vail was suddenly there, a solid wall of muscle between me and everyone else.

Grey eyes looked down at me. He didn’t say anything, just searched my face, looking for a clue as to what was wrong. I clawed back the maniacal laugh that threatened to spill out. What wasn’t fucking wrong at this point?

Slowly, Vail raised a hand and placed it over my chest. His palm rested on the swell of my left breast, right where that tug I always felt towards him—and now Draven—always was. Nobody else could see us with his broad body blocking their view.

I raised my own hand and placed it against his chest in the exact same spot.

A calm steadiness flowed between us. While I might treasure whatever this connection was between me and Draven, it seemed like such a bad idea with Vail.

Our conversation from that night in the cave came floating back.

When I’d asked why everything between us was so confusing.

“Because I should hate you, but I can’t, and you shouldn’t trust me, but you do.”

How was it that everything and nothing had changed since then? I drew in a steady breath before tugging my hand away from Vail. His eyes flashed, and I sensed a wave of frustration and annoyance through our bond.

Well, that was new. Previously, I had just been able to feel his general whereabouts.

Great. Now I had direct access to the feelings of a man I couldn’t—no, shouldn’t—trust again, and he probably had the same to mine.

Gods, somehow things had managed to get more complicated between us.

I looked away from Vail’s intense gaze and did what I’d done in the years after my parents’ deaths when grief had threatened to overwhelm me.

I gathered up all the intense emotions I was feeling, shoved them into a box, and buried it in the depths of my soul.

Then I envisioned a stone wall between me and Vail.

It felt a little clunky, but after a few seconds, the emotions I was feeling from him faded.

Without looking at Vail again, I reclaimed my seat at the table. After a frustrated growl, Vail returned to his post next to the door.

“Feeling alright, Samara?” Kieran’s father asked in an attentive but gentle tone that I knew was a lie.

I adored Kieran, but there was no one better than my sweet lover at trading one mask for another.

Even I was envious of his ability to hide whatever he was feeling and have a completely different emotion on his face. I was good, but nowhere near his level.

And the man looking at me, brows furrowed and eyes shining with concern, was half the reason Kieran could lie so well. The woman next to him, wearing a similar expression, was the other half.

“I’m fine.” I smiled at them both. It didn’t reach my eyes, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I wasn’t at my best at the moment. Even if I had been, I doubted I’d be able to fool these two with charming grins and fluttering eyelashes. It wasn’t worth the effort to try. “It’s been a long week.”

“I’m sure,” Narcisa said demurely and took a delicate bite of her food.

“How is Tamsen doing?” I asked politely.

The Corvinus Heir was interesting. Her parents were even worse than Kieran’s.

Mora and Darius were the reason Nyx—Tamsen’s younger sibling—had left Drudonia and become a ranger.

It was rare for a member of a House bloodline to leave their birth House for anything other than a politically arranged marriage.

To leave a House only to become a ranger for another was unheard of for someone like Nyx.

I wasn’t close to Tamsen, but I’d interacted with her enough over the years to know she was the least trustworthy of all the House Heirs—except Demetri, obviously.

Like her parents, Tamsen was skilled at hiding her emotions, and every exchange with her was like trying to find and avoid the carefully laid traps in her pretty words.

But Tamsen was also the reason Nyx had been able to get free of the toxic political bullshit of House Corvinus. She loved her younger sibling and had fought for them when it’d mattered—and had likely suffered the consequences.

It didn’t mean I trusted her . . . but there was more of a question mark beside her name now, whereas before, I’d had her firmly in the box with the rest of her House.

“Our Heir is doing wonderfully.” Narcisa beamed.

“She’s wrapped up in some negotiations with the Velesians right now; otherwise, she would have come herself.

I fear that each round of trading we do with them becomes more tedious than the last, but Tamsen always does right by her parents.

Mora and Darius are so fortunate to have one child who is loyal to the House and willing to put the work in. ”

I almost clapped at the performance. She’d managed to put down the Velesians and suggest that trading with them was failing as well as make a dig at both Nyx and Kieran.

I had no doubt that she and her husband were well aware of my relationship with their son—the rumors of us finally getting together had been quick to spread, and they were the types of people who knew every rumor before the last word of it was even whispered.

While Nyx had been with House Harker for years, their parents still probably considered the whole thing a black mark on their House.