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PROLOGUE
REMY
Of all the gambles I have ever taken, this might be the biggest one yet.
Betting on this. Onher.
But there isn’t another choice, not unless I’m willing to risk her facing the gallows. Perhaps I should be. It isn’t as though she’s innocent.
She’s a murderer and a liar and a thief, among other things.
She told me herself not to interfere.
All in all, the reasons to walk away from her are fairly endless. Yet, here I am.
Of course, this gambit will have been for nothing if she doesn’t show. By the third clang of the five o’clock bell, I’m beginning to think she won’t.
Then I see her. She’s easy enough to recognize, shorter than the other courtiers and wearing my sister’s ombre dress. She looks dainty and delicate and all of the things she will never be.
More than that, she looks…worried, even more so than she did in the dungeon last night.
The bell rings out again, and she turns sharply, disappearing in a sea of courtiers. My heart beats an unsteady staccato in my chest.
Is she leaving already?Like hell, she is.
I open my mouth before I can stop myself, before I can talk myself out of the sheer idiocy of this entire plan, and say the words that will seal my fate alongside hers.
“I choose Lady Aika Delmara as my bride.”
CHAPTERONE
AIKA
Ichoose Lady Aika Delmara as my bride.
The words reverberate in the silence that has fallen since the fifth and final toll of the bell, echoing in the cavernous chamber.
Bride.
Bride.
Bride.
If this is a joke, it is ill-timed, even by my standards.
But surely Remy is not serious. Just last night, I practically begged him to marry me, and he refused. Of course, that was before I outed myself as the vigilante, before I sat in his dungeons and risked the noose to keep Madame from going after him.
Not that he knows that’s why I did any of it.
So why is he willing to marry me now?
I barely have time to consider the question before I’m snapped back into the moment under the crushing pressure of Mother’s fingers digging into my skin.
I plead with my features not to betray an ounce of the shock coursing through my body. I know Remy must be close now, know that he picks up on absolutely everything, and that he will see her grip on me if she doesn’t release me soon.
Her eyes narrow in suspicion, and I widen mine, silently conveying a message.
I have nothing to hide. I did this for you. I am loyal, and this was all part of the plan.
