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She narrowed her eyes at me. “But it’s mine . You know it. The emperor knows it. That will be enough to win me my place back in the Imperium?”

I sighed. “There is no place in the Imperium for you.”

“Then your suggestion about Dr. Jafopo was as I suspected.” Lady Dalimu looked away. “I will not do it. I have been sold enough times to know that even death in barren Forsaith is better than that alternative.”

“No. I do not intend to sell you for information or to buy favor from courtiers. The emperor and I want to offer you a choice. Go north to the Silver City. Take your ship with you. Velethuil has the power to lift the ship over the mountains if your mechanics cannot manage it.” I watched her frown as she realized that now she had too much information.

She knew Tallu and I worked together, so if I was here, it was at his directive or with his permission.

And he was too clever to give her this much of his plan without purpose.

“Or?” She closed her eyes, pressing her palms together in a silent plea as though asking the animalia who served under the One Dragon for help.

“If you stay here, the best offer you’ll have is being shipped back to Forsaith and being a slave to Bechi, all your designs going to him, all your ideas claimed as his.

” I watched her skin go white as she pressed her hands together harder.

“Go north. Take Piivu with you. Make toys for the children of the Northern Kingdom.”

The shadows were shifting as the sun settled above us.

“Lady Dalimu, there is no option where you stay in the Imperium.” I looked up and saw Ratcatcher and Dawn landing at the edge of the square. “The emperor has plans, and you cannot be here.”

“Tallu and his plans.” But the words had no venom. “I’ll do it. What now?”

“You’ll stay as you are, everything the same. The day of the one-month celebration, you’ll leave for the north.” I pursed my lips. “Gather as many of your things as you can carry without drawing suspicion, and you can take those. I wish we could take you before then.”

“But we’re being watched too closely.” Lady Dalimu nodded. “My things, I have notes and clothes?—”

“Bring only what you can take without arousing suspicion,” I repeated, trying to keep my tone reasonable. “If someone sees you leaving with your belongings, they’ll have questions. Your life is not worth notes and clothes.”

“Tallu and his plans ,” she spat again. The venom was there this time, and I wondered how much time she’d been given to collect her things when her husband had been declared a traitor.

How much time she’d been given before her father had been executed.

How much time she’d been given before she had to marry Lord Dalimu.

“Lady Dalimu?—”

“Seka,” she said. “If I’m going north to the Silver City, I’d prefer to have my own name again.”

“Seka,” I said. I might no longer be able to speak with animals, but speaking with her, hearing the words from her mouth, felt the same; it was as though I was hearing the surface words, but I had to work to understand the true language underneath.

Boro returned, his presence like a dark cloud, a miasma that drifted into the garden and chased away the scents of summer flowers. “There was no one but an old gardener.”

“I appreciate your devotion to the cause,” I said. “I’m ready to go back. Lady Dalimu?”

She stood, straightening herself. “Seven days must seem like such a long time to wait for something so long desired.”

“Yes,” I agreed. I watched her carefully. “But we must do what we must do. Because what is the option otherwise?”

“I imagine more pins for you if you do not follow along,” she said agreeably.

“I think it would be very painful, if not deadly, for me to deviate from Nohe’s plans.” I waited until she met my eyes. “I have learned by now that the Imperium doesn’t favor those who drift from course. One must not antagonize the people who provide food and bedding free of bedbugs.”

The thin press of Lady Dalimu’s lips showed she understood the threat. I had no magic anymore, and I was just a blade honed to kill, but I could still do this. My threats were just as dangerous now as they’d been when I was my whole self.

“I look forward to seeing your one-month celebration,” Lady Dalimu said at the entrance to the labyrinth. “Consort Airón.”

“Lady Dalimu.” I nodded, turning to walk away first, even though it left me with my back to two people who had reason to want me dead.

After dinner, when Tallu and I had struggled through mildly awkward conversation in front of the servants, we ended up back in his room, the doors locked, alone for the first time all day.

“What’s wrong?” Tallu asked immediately, and I had no answer for him. He stepped forward, and I forced myself to stay in place, my feet fixed to the floor, even as every part of me wanted to use the skills Yor?mu had developed in me to escape.

I would fling myself out the window rather than admit the small, niggling thoughts that now took up my entire consciousness.

I was nothing. My mother had been right to play me as a pawn because that was all I would ever be. I had no magic; my sole use was to prick at the Imperium until it fell.

Tallu saw me the same way. Without magic, I was still useful to him because I was still a weapon he could wield.

Whatever affection I felt for him, whatever love was blooming inside me, was nothing, because in the end, my safety, my magic, and my very self were just pieces for him to play on the board.

“Airón, what is wrong?” The desperation in his voice told me that some of my feelings were showing on my face.

I smoothed over my expression. I was learning some things from him, starting with how to guard myself in the imperial manner. In court, he was emotionless, his face blank as a statue. Forcing myself to mimic him, I shook my head.

“Lady Dalimu will join us. I don’t like leaving her in the wind, but her going missing right now would be too suspicious. We need to?—”

“I don’t care about any of that,” Tallu said sharply. He cupped my face in his hands. “Airón, what is wrong?”

For a breath, I fought against telling him. A lifetime spent training meant I knew how to keep my pain quiet; I couldn’t let a whimper give away my position. But I couldn’t stand the unhappy confusion on Tallu’s face. As if he didn’t know how our story would end.

“Without my magic, I will be less useful for you. I can’t speak with the ravens anymore, and, when I see magic, there is an echo in my head that I can’t seem to shake.

But I can still perform my duty.” I met his eyes, wide with surprise.

He could pretend he had no idea what I was talking about.

But he was emperor, and he had been the puppeteer behind the fall of enough members of his court that he had to understand the politics.

He had to understand using someone until there was nothing more to wring from them.

“Airón.” Tallu inhaled deeply, his exhalation brushing against my lips like a kiss. “You are confused. Your magic was not of use to me. You were not of use to me.”

The words hit me like a punch. It was one thing to know I was expendable, but to be beneath notice, to be such a small thing in Tallu’s very long game that my loss of magic didn’t even register?—

“Because you are everything.” Tallu rubbed his thumbs over my cheekbones, stroking upward. “You are precious to me. If I could go back in time and take the wound Kacha and Fimo gave you, I would. I would lose my magic, I would lose my life for yours.”

I tried to pull back, but Tallu gripped me even more firmly, his fingers pressing into my skin almost painfully.

“Do you understand, Airón? Before you, I was nothing. I was only a purpose. And in achieving my goal, I lost everything that made me myself. But you came into my life like a prize I did not deserve. I am not alone when you are with me.” Tallu dipped his head forward so that our brows touched.

I could feel the press of his crown against my hairline, the metal warmed by his skin.

“I am so sorry that I have tainted the one perfect thing to come into my life.”

I gasped, trying to inhale, but I felt as though I was under arctic water, the cold pressing the last of the air from my lungs, the water guaranteeing my next breath would drown me. Tallu made no sense. The situation made no sense.

“No. I know my purpose. I know that without me, you would do fine. You did fine all these years. I am just another piece for you to play.”

“That is the first time in our acquaintance that you have lied so badly,” Tallu whispered, his words sending warmth through me.

“You were never a piece for me to play. Don’t you remember?

You said it yourself. You are not my assassin.

You are a gift, sent to me, and I will strive to deserve you.

I am sorry you lost your magic, I am sorry that I cannot fix it, and if I could give up my life to do so I would.

But promise me that you will not leave me. ”

The words rattled around inside me and rendered me almost incoherent. “What?”

“Airón, you are everything to me. I cannot lose you. Not because it will mean we cannot accomplish our goal but because without you, everything is meaningless.” His fingers tightened in my hair, tugging almost painfully.

“I love you. I did not know it was possible to love another person as much as I love you. Please don’t leave me alone here. ”

I pulled back, and Tallu let me go, his haunted gaze following me.

“You love me?” I asked, the words like rocks I was spitting out.

“It is impossible for me not to.” He looked down. “I will not make any request on you for similar favor. I understand what I represent to you and the Northern Kingdom?—”