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Mara blinked several times before looking down at the soft feather Cofsi had placed in her hands. Its navy color immediately flooded her mind with images of the creature that lurked in the depths of the Sandwoods.

Her brows furrowed… Were her fingers turning black? She flipped her hand over, holding the feather tight, noticing how the redness from being burned by the mirror had darkened, the tips of it turning to coal and slowly smoking up her hand.

Evrardin strolled into her space, and she quickly shoved the feather and her hand into the skirt of her dress.

“What did the Dusk Lord want?” he asked in spite.

“He was just making sure I was comfortable here.”

Evrardin scoffed, following Mara as she shoved past him and out to one of the desks in

the open hall. “Then why are your cheeks so red?”

Mara shied away from him, pretending to analyze the stack of books she set down. “It’s warm in here, is all.”

Anger flashed in the captain’s eyes. “Being alone with a man in the dark shadows of the library isn’t very proper,” he grumbled.

“Oh, but it’s okay when it happens with you?” Mara’s skin prickled at the memory. At the way the captain had almost kissed her in these very shadows.

“I’m your ward.”

“It’s really none of your concern what Lord Cofsi wanted with me. If he wished for you to know, he would have told you.” The warning not to trust Evrardin repeated inside her several times.

“Everything you do is my concern,” he growled.

Mara swallowed hard. She knew he only meant he was her warden because the prince commanded it, but his words still made her shiver.

“I wish to go back to my chambers,” she said in a frail lilt.

Evrardin scoffed as if he was still angry at her for more than just the present conversation. “Of course. Whatever the princess commands.”

She gritted the ivory of her teeth together, pausing, her back to Evrardin. “I hate when you do that, you know.” He was silent as she looked over her shoulder. “I do not wish to command you, Evrardin.”

He brought her to her rooms in barbed silence, and she hoped his attitude wouldn’t be so foul when she was to meet him later that night for training.