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It’s a long way back to the tower.
In my room, I throw myself onto my bed face-first and bite down on my pillow, hoping it might cure me. My heart is still beating fast, and the heat of Cyrus’s body smolders my skin.
Would I have stopped him at all if I wasn’t worried about us being found? The dream I had of him taunts me, the one where I invite him to do things that have only lived in my imagination. I would have loved to pull apart the buttons on his shirt—the snap when they break, his groan on my lips.
A shudder passes through my body, all the way down to the soles of my feet. I dig my nails into my palm. In my mind, I list all the things I hate about the prince, starting with his slightly too-big ears and how he keeps his sword strapped to his waist everywhere he goes like he’s compensating for something. How he can’t stand to look at me for more than a few seconds without curling his lips. The way he speaks like he knows anything about me.
I roll over, staring at the jewels embedded in the ceiling.
I’d still rather think about Cyrus instead of those violent scenes in Raya’s threads. I don’t get it: if she wanted any of us dead, she’s had every opportunity to make it so. In herpast threads—even now—Raya seems frightened, not malicious. Like a puppet.
But if that’s true, who is at the strings?
Someone knocks downstairs.
Ideally, I’d see zero people for the remainder of today—and this week, month, and year. I got out of my shell and all I have to show for it are traumatic visions. But I could find worse than Camilla swinging a basket of leftover cakes at my door.
She’s changed outfits since the party; a bright red frock covers the clover-patterned blouse she picked up from the tailor, and her cat, Catastrophe, lounges on her neck like a feline stole. Glamours or not, Camilla always finds a way to make a statement.
“So,” she says, inviting herself in. “That was bizarre.”
I don’t even know what she’s referring to, but I agree. “Sorry. How was the rest of the party? Raya’s moved in?”
“Into the worst room in the royal quarters! Last inhabited by a great-aunt who was obsessed with collecting stuffed bears. The furniture in there isdecadesout of date.”
“That’s not the kind of punishment you think it is.”
“Let me have this victory.” She twirls and flumps onto the sofa, setting the basket on the hearth. “What did you see in Raya’s threads? Everyone’s wondering.”
Camilla is dear, but if you tell her something, you may as well be shouting it from your rooftop to the entire Sun Capital and then writing personalized letters to everyone out of earshot. “I saw…her wedding.” I clear some plates off a velvet footrest, and Camilla stretches her legs onto it.
“That grim, hmm?”
A glamorous wedding with all the trappings, including a body count.“It was your brother’s wedding too, before you get too excited.”
“Those two make it all the way to the ceremony?”
“Maybe. The future isn’t fixed.”
“But it is very likely.”
I grimace. “Especially because I don’t know how to stopit.”
Camilla’s mouth pops open with an“Oh.”Catastrophe, the only creature more spoiled than the princess, climbs her way down onto her owner’s lap and curls up there, as if that were the culmination of the cat’s entire day’s work. Camilla scratches behind her cat’s twitching ear, humming a cheery tune. “Youwantto stop the wedding?”
“Don’t you?” I slump onto the armrest next to her.
“We’re not talking about me right now.” She swings her blood vial necklace like a pendulum. I can’t decipher her gaze, coy in one blink, a warning in the next, capricious as the shimmer and shadow that paint her eyelids. “I’m curious if you haveanotherreason for stopping the wedding. Earlier, it was strange when you left with Cyrus…”
“He wanted to know about Raya’s threads, too,” I scoff. “Doesn’t want anything to do with me until I’m useful.” And he thinks he’s so different from his father.
“Mmm, heisa brat. And how many pieces of clothing come off when you talk to Cyrus nowadays? Or stay on, if that’s easier to count.”
My cheeks heat to a temperature that could light a stove. “All our clothes stayon.”
Leaning on an elbow, the princess rests her chin on the curl of her hand, smug like she can read every dirty thought I had before she knocked on my door. Gods, maybe Cyrus is right. Maybe Ishouldleave Auveny forever. “How long has this been going on?” she asks, singsong.
“There is no‘this,’ ”I grit.
