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A chill ran through her body at the sound of the familiar voice. She twisted to the side, finding a woman wearing a chocolate-colored corset and yellow, billowing pants. The ruffle of brown curls bounced on the top of her head as she sauntered over, greeting Lily with a wide smile.

“There you are!” Reina exclaimed.

Lily’s heart bounded off her chest like a panicked rabbit. She was here. But where did she come from? And she wasn’t yelling. Why wasn’t she yelling? There was no way she wasn’t furious. “Reina… What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you!” she said harshly. “You didn’t think you could leave me behind, did you?”

“N-No.”

Reina presented yet another smile while kneeling down to the boy who moved behind Lily. “I see you came across the kid again. Need some help finding his parents?”

“No… No. Reina. You need to go.”

She huffed. “What are you talking about? You need me.”

The boy whimpered, and horror overtook Lily’s senses. She forced it away, drowning out the blood pounding in her ears with her voice.

“Tell you what. Let’s find someplace a little”—Lily glanced around—“quieter and figure out a plan, hm? How about there?” She pointed to the empty, far end of the market. Reina cocked a brow, and Lily stuck out her hand. “After you, queen.”

Lily kept a smile glued to her face until Reina turned her back. She took her time moving forward, in part intentional, another against her wishes—the boy was clinging to her hip, fingers grasping onto the bottom of her coat.

She leaned down toward him. “What is it?”

He took his time responding. His feet were practically plastered to the floor. Something in the air was off, and the boy knew it too. She hesitated, rubbing her fingers together free from the glove, before slipping off the other, never taking her eyes off Reina until she was lost in the crowd.

Lily dropped to the boy’s level. “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me. If there’s something wrong, I need to know.” She spoke with hard, clear words, hoping she’d be able to pry an answer she liked out of him; though, she suspected he was going to tell her exactly what she didn’t want to hear.

“I thought I saw someone,” he whispered.

“Who?”

His eyes drifted behind her, and Lily turned to Reina at the other end of the market. She caught her between the movements of the crowd, wearing a posture that didn’t belong to her. She was still, hands normally on her hips were crossed over her chest.

“Move,” Lily said. “Now!”

Lily tugged on the boy’s arm, shoving past clusters of bodies, ignoring the curses and grunts of disapproval. Her focus fell on and never left the sail in the sky. The crowd slowly parted, her hand reaching for the graft.

The boy’s grip slipped from hers, and she halted in place against her wishes. She tried to ball her fists and pull her arms to move, but they wouldn’t budge.

Fuck! No! She sucked in a breath when she was shoved backward by a force she couldn’t see. Her back slammed to the ground, and the air in her belly flew from her lungs.

In between gasps, she watched people gather around her, murmuring over her unnatural movement. In that moment, she felt a break in the grip, and she was free. She got to her knees before it returned, freezing her in place.

“I’ll be damned,” a woman said, weaving through the cluster.

A man followed close behind, sneering at the onlookers to move on. He stared down at Lily, brows together. Trailing a gentle hand down the woman’s arm, he dropped to a knee and grabbed Lily’s chin, hand as cold as a corpse in the snow. He ripped off her glasses, turning her head one way, then the other, while his scarlet-tinted shard examined her features. Eventually, he tossed her away.

“Reaper? Yes, but Imordial? I don’t sense it.”

“Are you sure?” the woman asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Neir seemed sure of himself.”

“I am.”

What looked like Reina sauntered into Lily’s line of sight. Tight in her grasp was the collar of the boy, held there like a feral kitten, biting and clawing at the air. Reina’s likeness handed him off to the man.

Her skin and clothing bubbled like a roiling pit of tar. A muffled crack of bone caused Lily’s muscles to tense as Reina grew taller. From the feet up, her skin lightened in color and smoothed back into the resemblance of a human, revealing the haunting face of the man at the bar. He adjusted his coat and pushed back his hair. All the while he grinned down at her.

“Well, well. I didn’t think you had it in you, pet. Attacking a valued member of the royal guard and kidnapping the empress’ son?”