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A mannequin in the corner is draped with the most beautiful gown I have ever seen.

Not that I see many. The overskirt on this example is pale pink silk so fine it reminds me of a cloud, dotted with winking gems. The underskirt is a froth of ivory silk, the waist nipped in, and the bustline is cut just a shade lower than socially acceptable.

This is the gown of a confident woman who embraces her femininity. Whomever she is, I can tell by her choice that she’s beautiful and she knows it. She wouldn’t accept anything less than the love she deserves. She wouldn’t stand for the kind of treatment I endure.

A fantasy gown, for a lady who doesn’t exist. Certainly not for me.

As if to reinforce my thoughts, Cilla narrows her eyes at me. “Stop staring at it, Mouse. You’d look awful in that dress.” She tuts and eyes my flaming braid. “Not with that hair.”

Hurt squeezes my heart. Let me dream for a moment, at least.

Coins jingle in Tremaine’s pocket.

“Are you certain you can’t squeeze in two more?” he says.

Two?

My mouth falls open. “Three,” I insist. The modiste looks at me. Tremaine glares, but I ignore him and push forward. “It’s my money. I am required to attend. I need a gown.”

“The maid isn’t right.” He gestures to his head. “We employ her out of the goodness of our hearts, but she cannot be left alone.”

The modiste looks at me, then at him.

“He is my stepfather. He’s spending my dowry. The very least he can do is purchase me a dress for one night.”

Her gaze skims down my body, taking in my patched, ragged dress, my worn shoes, and the dust clinging to places where I perspired out in the hot sun. Shame sears through me.

They exchange a glance. She takes the coin and snaps at her seamstresses. “I’ll see what we can do for the two young ladies.”

I risked my dowry for nothing.

The tears I’ve been fighting all day leak hot trails down my cheeks. I turn and dart out into the street, heedless of the direction I’m going—or who’s coming.

A huge white horse startles and rears over me. I gasp.

His hair is golden like a prince out of a fairy tale. His shoulders are broad and his features handsome, or would be, if he weren’t fighting to gain control over his horse. Two hooves paw the air inches from my face. I throw my hands up to protect my face.

When the blow doesn’t come, I flee, glancing back once to find his gaze burning into mine.

* * *

Alistair

“Find her!” I shout at my useless guards. “Someone must know where she went.”

My new head guard, Othmar, shakes his head. “No, sir. She is not from the city, apparently. No one has ever seen her before.”

“Keep searching.”

Fuming, I ride back to the castle and pour wine into a goblet, pondering my options as I wait for my father to join me at dinner.

I could pull all the guards from their details and send them scouring the countryside looking for her. But that would only draw attention to my plan to secure a meek and obedient queen by passing off a commoner as a highborn lady.

It rankles, but I must let her go. One last impulsive attempt to exert a measure of control over my own life. Rudely, I prop my elbows on the table and drop my face into my cupped palms. Heaviness settles over me.

What does it matter what kind of woman I take to wife? The only requirement is that she be fertile enough to bear children. I need heirs. Any youthful female will do.

Once, I set my sights on a legend, while ignoring the fact that she was also a woman with a mind of her own. I tried to compel Briar into marrying me without once asking whether she wanted that. I treated her like a possession. I found her. I awakened her with a kiss. She was supposed to be mine.

But she wasn’t. When she left, she took with her the one person I have ever called friend .

A scratch of wood on stone and harsh breaths pulls me out of my reverie.

“You look pensive.” My father shuffles forward, his frame bent almost double by the disease eating him from the inside out. His voice is as hoarse as a frog’s croak.

“You should be abed.”

“I cannot lie around all day.” He drops heavily into his seat with the assistance of two strong men, one at each elbow. “There is too much left unsettled for me to die.”

Meaning my failure to secure the royal line. Wordlessly, I wave to a servant to refill my wine chalice.

“Your thirtieth year approaches, son. I allowed you to roam free for too long.”

A lifetime would not have been long enough. “What if I do not wish to marry?”

The king scoffs. “It is your duty. Instead of fulfilling your obligations, you were out hunting monsters with that disloyal dark knight of yours.” He stabs one finger at me from across the long table. “That is why I cannot die. This is why I do not know peace?—”

He cuts off with a ferocious hacking cough. Blood spatters the gleaming table.

“Had you not attempted to seduce my previous fiancée, she might not have fled.” I keep my tone light, ignoring the way his illness unsettles me.

A light breeze wafts through the dining hall, ruffling the decorative strip of cloth on the center of the large table.

I refuse to be in enclosed spaces with my sire.

I don’t want to catch whatever is rotting his lungs.

“Or, might I suggest that waiting until you were past fifty to see to your own legacy is what brought us to this pass?” Idly, I toy with my napkin ring. He thinks to lecture me about waiting to marry, when he married so late?

“I did not—” coughing “—think I would—” more coughing “—ever sit—” Gods, this is painful to listen to “—upon the throne.”

“Your arse has warmed that velvet cushion for six decades, Father. Don’t tell me that marrying late was a mere oversight.” I push back my chair. I’d rather eat in my room than be lectured by a hypocrite. “Rest assured, I shall be wed within the fortnight. Then you can be free.”

I don’t mean it cruelly. I hate seeing my father in pain. He insists upon joining me for dinner despite his worsening health. I wish he wouldn’t.

Outside, I find my guard, Othmar, waiting for me. He straightens, then bows. Killian never bowed to me. On the rare occasion when he did, it was to mock me. I miss that bastard.

“Did you find her?” I snap.

“Not yet, Highness.”

“Keep searching.”

“Sir. No one knows what she looks like.”

“Red hair. Aquamarine eyes.” Gemstone eyes , though I don’t say that out loud. “About yea tall.” I hold my hand at my mid-chest, then lower it a few inches, but no, she couldn’t have been that short. I bring it higher, closer to my shoulders.

The truth is, I don’t know anything about her.

I caught a glimpse of a pretty girl in a ragged dress and fancied myself her savior.

In the hours since, I have built one brief, startling interaction into an entire fantasy to explain why my chosen bride and my only friend abandoned me.

For all I know, that girl in the streets is missing half her teeth and suffers the same coughing disease that afflicts my father.

“Othmar.”

“Highness?”

“Call off the search.” I know I’m being contradictory and that this will not win me any favor with the royal guardsmen. I don’t care. “Announce an award. A generous one. Describe only the events of this afternoon. Leave out any mention of her appearance.”

Otherwise, we’ll be inundated with pretenders doused in illegal glamours. I cannot go about arresting half the women in Belterre even if they are breaking the law. Their fathers would put my head on a pike.

A servant opens the door to my personal study. Once upon a time, this room was filled with trophies from my hunts with Killian. After he left me, I had them all removed.

The skin from the basilisk we killed together?

Gifted to a neighboring nation, Caldrithonia.

A gesture of goodwill worth more than the massive sum we could have sold it for.

I claimed victory from the dragon we fought and mounted its head as proof, but it was Killian who slew it.

He made armor from its scales and kept his mouth shut.

The damned thing disappeared from my study during renovations on the castle, necessary because of the havoc wrought by the monsters following Briar. My fault, for waking her and bringing her to Belterre Castle in the first place.

A growl tears out of me. I wheel on Othmar.

His eyes flare wide. I’m struck by the resemblance between us.

He isn’t a dead ringer for me, but his hair is about the same in-between shades of dark blond or light brown, depending on how the light hits, and his height is approximately the same.

He’s a tad more muscular, which shames me for reasons I don’t like to think about, but that’s true of all the guards.

My father never could keep his cock in his pants. I wouldn’t be surprised if Othmar is a relation, perhaps a half-brother. He wouldn’t be the first I’ve encountered, and I doubt he’ll be the last.

No matter. The resemblance between us could prove useful.

“How are your dancing skills?”

“Highness?” The guard’s confusion is etched on his features. Good with a sword; thick as two short planks.

“Dancing. Waltzes, reels, that sort of thing. How well do you know the steps?”

His Adam’s apple bobs. “Passably well, Highness.”

“Find a maid and start practicing. Now.” I gesture to the door. “Out. That’s an order.”

“But I am to guard you?—”

“I said, get out .”

Palms out, he shuffles backward out the door. I slam it in his face.

Alone, I scrub my face and let out a deep sigh. Isolation wraps around me like a blanket that holds no warmth.

Then I move to the opposite wall and slam my fist against the secret lever. A hidden door pops open. To the left is a narrow stairway leading deep into the bowels of the castle. To the right, the stairs lead upward into my secret tower.

I turn right and begin to climb.

At the top of the stairs is a circular room. In the center is a brass tripod holding a blue enameled cylinder longer than my arm, and twice as wide. The Eye.

I squint to peer through the telescope. It is as I left it, trained upon the castle atop Thorn Mountain. Moonlight reflects off the pale stone. A long, dark shape coils around one tower. Its scales glint when the dragon raises its massive head to look straight at me.

I jerk away from the lens with a full-body shudder.

“Detestable worm,” I mutter, adjusting the Eye toward the sky. It takes a bit of searching to find the cloud formation of the fae. This telescope was a gift from the Caldrithonians, a gesture of appreciation for the basilisk skin.

A flash of white catches my eye, and I carefully adjust the knobs to focus the lens.

The clouds tower high, lit from within like a lightning storm rages there.

On occasion, I have seen the outline of a high tower.

The outline of a castle almost identical in shape to the one on Thorn Mountain, the sanctuary where Briar and Killian retreated to avoid punishment. Cowards.

“Show yourselves,” I mutter.

Tonight, the fae gods remain hidden. Eerie white lightning flashes within the wispy haze. If not for the magical cloud cover, their hiding place would be as bright as the sun. Impossible to miss. But with it, even at night, their hiding place is invisible to the naked eye without a telescope.

I have not told anyone of the existence of the fae realm. A sacrilege; a secret all my own. Oddly, the cloud has comforted me in the lonely months since Briar and Killian left. Squinting at it calms me now.

Wind whips through the open tower. Reluctantly, I place a leather case over the telescope and buckle it. There are no windows to close in this tower. Only a roof overhead to protect the instrument from the elements. I shall have to bring it down to my study once the weather turns cold.

Turning the telescope to secure a clasp, I inadvertently point it down at the town below. I uncap the lens, adjust the dials, and scan the streets like I’m a harpy drifting over the city in search of prey.

Itinerant merchants have broken down their stalls for the day and are carting them off. Drunks stagger along streets. Waifs and beggars cling to the shadows. A pickpocket darts away from an unwary victim. Ordinary city life.

I don’t know what I expected, but disappointment guts me when I find no sign of the maiden.

I replace the cap and finish stowing my prize away for another time. Two weeks hence, I shall marry the first lady to come through the ballroom doors, and leave Othmar to dance with the rest.