No one had forced him to promise that he wouldn’t drop me.

In fact, he could have let me suffocate in my own refusal.

As far as I knew, just because one person refused to go through with a bargain didn’t mean that the other suffered for it. Not magically, at least.

But he had risked his life anyway. He’d made a vow to me, just so I would feel safe enough to step off that platform. Just so I wouldn’t kill myself from fear.

So, in a way, maybe it had meant something, the flirtatious remarks and the winks and the grins that seemed to overtake his entire face…

I kept the key to my room underneath my pillow, and my fingers kept finding it, twiddling with it. Like it were some sort of lavish gift—an emerald necklace or an opal ring, and not just a stupid key.

But I would have taken the key over a fine piece of jewelry any day, so maybe it wasn’t so stupid after all. It allowed me to roam freely through the castle, and I wasn’t sure what Evander had said to his father to convince him to let me have it. But I was grateful all the same.

Not long after Evander left, the click of the key in the lock signaled Imogen’s arrival. I still kept my door locked when I was inside my quarters, though. I didn’t exactly trust the king to employ the palace guard based on how trustworthy they were around females. Imogen’s timing had me wondering whether she’d been lurking around the corner, watching my door to make sure Evander returned me to my quarters at a decent hour.

Still, I was glad to see her. I was dying to explore the castle, but I’d only ever been escorted from room to room, and Blaise liked to take different paths every time—something about keeping things interesting.

Imogen hadn’t exactly looked pleased about the idea of me wandering the castle without an escort, but she’d drawn a map for me just the same.

Granted, her script had been almost impossible to decipher, given the way she left so little space between her characters that they practically ran together.

But I’d made it all the way to the library and back to my rooms without getting lost, so I supposed the map was functional.

Now, as I took another glance at the map, I couldn’t help but notice that Imogen had failed to label Evander’s quarters.

Not that I was searching for them.

Without my permission, my mind wandered back to our walk. How he’d stepped right in front of me, so close that I could have kissed him if I’d wanted to.

I told myself I hadn’t wanted to.

But then I had to shake my head and remind myself that it hadn’t been real. Prince Evander, heir to the Throne of Dwellen, had told me himself that he was well practiced in wooing women. That his frequent dalliances had meant little to him. Recently women had been a means to numb his pain. And before that, even worse, his boredom, since he couldn’t think of anything better to do with his immortality and riches.

I rolled my eyes, agitated now. Evander might have shown me his softer side; he might have opened up to me about his brother, but that didn’t make him any less of a spoiled brat.

And that was the worst part. I didn’t want him to be a spoiled brat.

There was a time when I had. I had wanted very much for him to be every vile, annoying, self-absorbed inch of his reputation. It had been easier to hate him then. Easier to hate this life for being so different than how I’d imagined my future.

But hating him wasn’t quite so simple anymore. Now all I could feel was irritation when I remembered how foolish he’d been… how wasteful. How he’d squandered years of his immortal life and riches on parties and women when he could have been helping, well, someone. Anyone. Funding orphanages or building homes for the widows who roamed the streets of Othian.

And now I was angry at him for not being that person. For not being benevolent or wise or…

Well, for not being his brother.

My heart twinged at the thought. I didn’t want to be like his father, requiring Evander to be someone he wasn’t. But it wasn’t as though I expected him to become a different person entirely, to change his personality and dreams and demeanor just to fit someone more adequate to take the throne. No. That wasn’t it at all. Because there was something about the mischief in the corners of his glances, the eagerness with which he teased… Something about how, even in his grief, he found a way to make others laugh… That was what he’d done with me, wasn’t it? Seen my distress on the platform of the first trial and gotten under my skin until the anxiety was…not gone. But bearable.

That part of him, I didn’t want to change.

But a person didn’t have to change themselves entirely to become kinder, more generous. To consider the needs of others.

Or perhaps they did.

My heart sank. Who was I to expect Evander to change at all? Sure, I was his betrothed, and if I survived the next trial, I would become his wife.

Just not the wife he wanted.

I figured he had resigned himself to our fate well enough, just as I had. He found me pleasant to talk to, an interesting enough person to have around.

A friend.

The mingled delight and torture that word provoked within my stomach threatened to make me ill.

And then there was the mystery woman, this Cinderella. The girl from the ball he’d been so quick to try to snag into marriage. I knew I shouldn’t waste my thoughts on her, that it was unproductive to do so. But that was easier said than done. At least during the day, I typically had something to distract me. A duel with Blaise or a luncheon with the queen or a trial to prepare for.

But now there was only the moonlight slipping through my window, spilling light like glowing white ink onto the floor. And it wasn’t much of a distraction, was it? During the last full moon, Evander had been whisking a beautiful stranger onto the dance floor, laughing and talking and falling in love.

Was Evander still in love with that woman? Even after he’d had time for the facts to settle in, the undeniable truth that she was nothing but a petty thief? And if so, what was so special about her, other than her apparent ravishing beauty—obviously—that gave her such a hold over him?

The night Evander had invited me to dinner, he’d told me she was the only person who’d ever treated his brother’s death as a matter deserving of grief rather than a political discussion. She’d spoken to him as a person, not a prince.

But, I realized, hadn’t I done the same, if not better?

The thought settled uncomfortably in my stomach. It was the kind of arrogance that my mother would have had me cleaning the window sills for as a child. Hadn’t the prince mentioned earlier how, all his life, women had assumed they had a right to his affections? What I had begun to expect was little better. I was playing into that same age-old assumption.

That because I loved him, I deserved his affections in return.

I stumbled into sleep over a bed of cold, sharp thoughts.

CHAPTER 30

She stalked in a cool blanket of shadows, a predator as much as a parasite. The plain girl’s bedroom allowed quick access to the kitchen, so it had been no trouble to snatch a carving knife.

It really couldn’t have worked out better than this, the parasite mused—a royal servant wandering into the Madame’s shop. She knew every winding staircase. Every long passageway. Each shortcut to Ellie Payne’s room.

They’d locked her in for the night. It had taken little effort to secure the key.

When she crept into Ellie Payne’s room, the woman didn’t stir. Moonlight danced across her face, highlighting her deep brown cheeks as she slept. Even unconscious, the woman was breathtakingly beautiful, her cheekbones high, her lips full, her eyelashes thick and curling.

Before, the parasite had considered it a shame that Ellie Payne must die, her talents with her.

But now, as she stared at the woman’s beautiful face, something unpleasant stirred within her, puncturing her insides and making them ooze bile.

Perhaps I’ve made a mistake, the parasite thought, examining the woman’s flawless details. Perhaps I chose the wrong sort of beautiful. Suddenly the perfect body she’d just admired in the mirror only minutes ago seemed cliche. Predictable. Unremarkable, in Ellie’s Payne’s presence.

The venom in her gut heated as she thought of the way the prince sometimes looked at Ellie Payne.