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On the third day, a note from the tailor arrived at the house, confirming our outfits were complete. I left Arin sleeping, visited the barber to style my hair exactly as Razak wore his, then collected the clothes for which Arin had already paid—he’d pawned his ceremonial joining dagger for a small fortune, a fact I was rather glad Draven didn’t know.
While he continued to sleep, face down on the bed, arms and legs akimbo, I stripped, showered, and applied the new clothes, complete with a long black tailcoat, embossed with silver and purple. The quality matched that of Razak’s own tailors, and once dressed, I stood in front of the full-length mirror, staring at my brother looking back.
It was real—suddenly and violently real.
I swayed and reached for the nearby dresser top. My brother followed. Gods. I turned my face away from the mirror. My gut flipped, churning. Nausea rolled up my throat, hot and acidic. He wasn’t here, I wasn’t him.I lunged into the bathroom, dropped to my knees, and dry heaved nothing into the toilet bowl, thankful I hadn’t eaten.
I had to do this. I had to pretend to be him, to laugh like him, sneer like him, smile like him. I had tobeRazak. I clutched the bowl and tried to swallow my heart back down where it belonged.
Being Razak was like any other act, any performance. He wasn’t me, and I wasn’t him. Just an act, another lie, a performance that would eventually end. They always did.
“Lark?”
“I’m fine,” I croaked.
Arin crouched beside me, messy and perfect, with a sheet wrapped around his waist. He offered a cup of water. The sheet slipped. He clung awkwardly to it with one hand, while the other held out the water. “We don’t have to do this.”
He was wrong. This had to be done.
My dreams were worsening—dreams of storms, and laughter, of falling into oblivion, where I’d be shattered into countless pieces. The nightmares meant something; they told me Razak was winning.
“We could go back to my court, see if there’s anything left to salvage, just you and I.”
I took the cup and sat on the bathroom floor, cradling the cup in my lap. “He’ll find us.” The bounty hunter was just the beginning. “He’ll never stop. We’ll forever be looking over our shoulders, forever running.” I sipped the water, finding it clean, cool, and fresh, and shook my head. “I don’t want that life, do you?” He didn’t reply, didn’t need to. “We must do this.”
Arin nodded. “I’ll be with you.”
Taking him into Pain… My honey and sunshine, my Prince of Flowers. I feared what it might do to him, whatImight do to him. “Perhaps Draven was right, and you shouldn’t go.”
His smile froze on his lips. “It’s not up for debate. I come, or we don’t do it. I’m not leaving you alone in this.”
“Very well, Your Highness.” Arguing with Arin was pointless; he knew how I liked it. In fact, Arin might have been the only person in the four courts to truly know me. It was strangely freeing, having him see me, therealme. Not having to hide my ugliness, my wrongness.
He stood, reached down, and helped pull me to my feet. I swayed a little. His firm hand clutched my shoulder, steadying me. I did need him with me, because if I went back to the Court of Pain alone, I’d shatter. He was right; I couldn’t do this alone.
“It’ll just be for a few days.” His voice was soft, but the ferocity in his eyes made it clear there would be no negotiation. Had I been of a stronger mind, I might have shoved him against the wall and reminded him which one of us controlled the other, and he’d let me.
“What?” he asked, the warmth in his cheeks ruining his mean glare.
“Your tone when you’re mad is exceedingly arousing.”
He chuckled and led me out of the bathroom. “You findeverythingarousing.”
“Only when it comes to you.”
He pretended to frown. “Remind me, how many people in my court did you seduce?”
“Most of them, and those I did not fuck, I fucked over.” I flopped onto the bed, forgetting that I wore my new clothes and resembled my brother. I’d have to practice his mannerisms during the next few days.
Arin would need to purchase us passage to Pain’s borders, and from there, we’d walk into Pain’s central city as though I owned it, and Arin would be my prisoner, slave, pet? Certainly not the prince peering down at me now.
“Did you truly?” he asked.
Ah, this man, he’d work all my secrets from me and then I’d lose all my mystery and magic. “No, I did not engage in carnal desires with half the people I was accused of dallying with. Some rumors may have been embellished.”
“By you?” He snorted.
“As if I’d do such a thing!”
