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I keep my head high and smile bright. Doing so becomes easier when Luren quickly steps alongside me, with Sorza and Dristin on my left.

“You all right?” Luren asks, her voice tinged with concern.

“How could she not be when she’s to become a princess?” Dristin says dryly. “One step closer to being royalty.”

“Yeah, but it’s by being engaged to Kaelis, ” Sorza points out, and that silences him.

“I couldn’t be better,” I force myself to say. Threat or no, Kaelis is right about having to keep up appearances. I speak loudly enough for those around us to hear as well. “I’m glad that my quarters were finally prepared in his apartments. We’d spent far too long apart.”

Sorza gives me a pointed look and slows her pace. I do the same, allowing Dristin and Luren to go ahead. The two quickly strike up a conversation. Dristin has been good to Luren in the months following Kel’s death by always making sure she has someone by her side.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Sorza asks under her breath, drawing my attention back to her.

“Of course I am, I said I couldn’t be—”

“I know what you said.” Sorza studies me. “But you don’t mean it.”

“Yes, I do,” I insist.

“Clara—”

I halt, stopping her with me. I lock eyes with Sorza. “I am right where I need to be, Sorza.” Please understand and drop this, I beg without saying.

She must hear me because Sorza gives a slight nod and we carry on.

The classroom is a hive of activity as we all settle into our seats around the dueling ring. I rest my satchel on the floor at my side and shift to find a comfortable position, imagining I am that queen from the portrait. Serene. Meant to be perched on her throne.

“Today you will divide into threes to explore the different methodologies of dueling two opponents at once.” Vaduin steps through the center arena, gaze sweeping over the initiates. “Because the circumstances we find ourselves in might not always be fair, but we persist…”

Time marches on as steadily as the chill that begins to creep deeper and deeper into the halls of the academy.

Classes have found their rhythm once more following All Coins Day, but the professors are beginning to emphasize the importance of every, single, lesson, as though each one were the very last before the Three of Swords Trials.

Fortunately, I’ve begun to hit my stride now that I’ve truly learned what the professors are looking for.

Even if what I am forced to do at the academy is not my way to ink, or wield, or read… it works.

At night, I focus on the hasty sketches Twino drew and passed to Jura via the parchment she slipped into my pocket on the march back from All Coins Day. I compare them against my initial, from-memory sketches, refine, compare again, sleep on it, then refine some more.

Even though I’m living in his apartments, I hardly see Kaelis. Which is unexpectedly odd. We have breakfast in the mornings but talk less than we used to when our paths would cross only rarely in the school itself. When we do speak, it’s entirely about my forgeries.

“Promising.” His voice is thick and deep when he’s focused, especially before he’s had his second cup of tea. He furrows his brow slightly as he examines my sketches in the morning light, meaning he’s struggling to find problems. I’m starting to notice all these little things about him.

“You think so?”

“Yes, though I don’t think this is quite right.” Kaelis taps one of the lines. “Look at how awkward this is. Wouldn’t something like this”—he reaches for a pen and sketches over my drawing—“be more natural?”

“?‘Natural’ doesn’t mean right, or accurate,” I counter.

“It does when what feels natural to me is usually right and accurate.”

“Funny, that’s how it usually works with me, too.”

We go back and forth drawing over each other’s lines and debate until the bells toll and it’s time for me to head off to classes.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat…

I bundle up tightly in heavy wool coats whenever I set out in the evenings.

Kaelis has agreed that for the sake of the likelihood of my being accepted into a house, I can’t be a complete hermit in his apartments.

But I’m not sure which atmosphere is more stifling: Kaelis’s apartments, or the common areas where all the students and initiates look at me as if I have grown a second head.

The only breath of fresh air I find is with my unexpected group of friends in the hours we spend in the library or huddled in front of a fireplace practicing for the upcoming Three of Swords Trials.

Or those rare moments when I return to my old room to train with Alor in secret.

She’s a fast learner, and she’s sharp as the daggers she always has on her person.

I even find myself picking up new techniques when I work with her.

I’m lost in my thoughts one night as I wander back to Kaelis’s apartments later than intended. So I nearly jump from my skin when a voice I haven’t heard in weeks says, “Clara, a moment?”

Silas leans against a stone archway.

“What is it?” I stop, but I don’t approach him. He’s still unfinished business. But I haven’t dared to make any moves. I still don’t have the proof I need to be sure of where I stand with him, one way or another.

“I wanted to tell you that the nobles are still talking about you and Kaelis. They’re not convinced your love is real.”

“And how would you know that if you never leave the academy?” I ask cautiously, calling back to his hesitation about leaving the first time we met.

“I hear things in these halls.”

“As do I.”

“Good, then you know you need to do more to convince them.”

Irritation flares within me. “What would you propose? That I lie out on a table in the hall and spread my legs so Kaelis can take me then and there?” The words are laced with sarcasm, but there’s an undercurrent of genuine curiosity.

I can’t help but wonder if Silas has actionable advice. Not that I’m sure I’d take it.

“Probably not that.” His lips quirk in a half smile that he quickly abandons. “It’s almost the recess before the Three of Swords Trials. Do something then to make them believe.”

It’s not an awful suggestion… “And do you have any ideas of what I might do?”

“Go to the court. Or, at the very least, the crown’s solstice festivities. The Oricalis royals are always hosting something, somewhere. Show up, make a scene like you did at the soiree, but…more.”

“I’ll think about it.” I turn to leave.

He catches my forearm. I didn’t even hear him close the gap. “Clara—” Silas pauses, searching my face. “Have I…have I done something to offend you?”

“Of course not.” I force a smile before my mask of composure can slip. “There’s just a lot going on for me. Three of Swords Trials are coming up, after all, and I’m not as strong as I should be with reading. So I need to make sure I pass wielding and inking or else I’m headed for the mills.”

“Right.” He releases me.

I start to walk and then stop. Turning back to him and thinking better of every word, I ask before I can stop myself, “Silas, are you really on my side?”

But when I turn to face him once more, he’s gone. As if he were never there to begin with. I stand, the chill in the air forgotten as I wait for an answer. But none comes.

Days condense into weeks. Fall surrenders its colors with one final, blustery day, and winter advances in earnest. The scattered leaves are like sand in an hourglass, reminding initiates that the Three of Swords Trials are right around the corner.

Reminding me that my time is running out.

I work in the Sanctum of the Majors. The change of pace brings new ideas to the forefront of my mind for my forgeries.

Eza and I continue to circle each other like wolves, each nipping at the other’s heels but never making a move.

I help Sorza figure out how to ink her own card, and seeing how she paints her lines is how I ultimately make my final breakthrough, too.

That night, I work until the dawn. And the next day, as soon as I walk into the dining room for breakfast, I present Kaelis with the final designs for the forgeries.

He studies them in silence for an agonizingly long period of time. Finally, his eyes drift to mine.

“Yes.” With just that one word, a rush tingles through my entire body. The glint in his eyes is like a spark on coal igniting. It’s been weeks since he looked at me with anything more than ambivalence, and I’m shocked to find I missed that passion.

Love me, hate me, but only look at me like my existence sets you on fire… I bite the insides of my cheeks to keep myself from saying so and banish the thought.

“Now we’ll begin the process of inking them.”

“I’ve been thinking about that and—”

“These are special cards and will require special inks to make a believable forgery. My father won’t be fooled by any normal ink or paper.” Kaelis stands, clearly thinking his plan is the better of our two. Much the same had crossed my mind.

“The waters around the World statue?” I guess.

“Right line of thought, but no; the font of the World won’t work. The color only changes to gold for a real card.”

“Perhaps if I ink it with my blood?” Like I do for other cards.

“While you are astounding, for this we’ll have to use something else as ancient and powerful as the font of the World.”

“And what is that?” I ask, folding my arms. This had better be good, because he’s not even entertaining what I had to say.

“Come to me promptly after classes. Give your best lovestruck excuse to the others who monopolize so much of your time.” There’s almost a note of…

jealousy? Surely I’m imagining it, given that, if he wanted my time, he’s known exactly where to find me for weeks.

“For you will not be joining them for dinner tonight.”

“What are we doing instead?” And why is my heart starting to race?

He opens his mouth but is interrupted by the bells ringing. He smirks. “Off you go, Clara. Come back soon. I promise it’ll be worth your time.”