Sunlight and a sweltering breeze blows in through the open window beside the chair I perch in, unable to relax as I await the Prince’s arrival.

  After three days of rain and contemplating my father’s supposed murder, the note came during breakfast. The Prince requested my accompaniment for a ride at high noon.

  Now, over an hour past, my gut has fully descended into the twisted, despairing possibility that he might not come at all.

  “He’s the Prince,” Lilianna says to the room at large from the chair she’s dragged to the window overlooking Canal Street. “No doubt he has many things which require his attention. He can’t have forgotten. The letter only came this morning.”

  Clara paces in and out of the room, tending to imaginary things. “You make sure you leave that window the moment you catch sight of him! I won’t have him thinking he’s being watched and speculated about.” She makes an irritated noise and storms out again. Clara does not wait well.

  I’ve spent the past eight years of my life waiting. In the attic, starving, to endure my punishment. On the table, bleeding to fund this moment. Laying awake at night dreaming of what comes next, after this. And now, has someone reported sighting me with Abel? Did anyone recognize me with that boy? Anxiety eats at me, but what is one more hour? Another day? I can endure. I will.

  The Foundress clears her throat from the sofa and lifts the letter she’s been reading. The spectacle lenses perched low on her nose amplify the dots of gold across her plump brown cheekbones. “From my son.”

  “I hope he is well?” I welcome the distraction.

  The Foundress Privett peers over the letter. “Quite, it appears. You’d enjoy him, I suspect.”

  “I imagine so.” I enjoy the Foundress more and more every day. What might a son raised by her be like? “Will you tell me about him?”

  “Mm, he is a bright young man, very involved in politics and trade, as you know. I should think you’d enjoy his tales. I, myself, bore of them after an hour or so. He is returning next week, so you’ll find out for yourself soon enough. I’ll be having to disappoint your stepmother, however, as he hasn’t an inclination for marriage. Although I think we all know she’s got her heart set on that Prince of yours.”

  “Hardly mine,” I say, a blush creeping its warmth into my cheeks.

  “Yes, remember all the things he said about you?” Lilianna says, tearing her eyes from the window to glance over her shoulder. “At the ball? And in the gardens after tea with the Queen? And he signs every one of his letters ‘Yours, Emory’. No doubt he is exceptionally fond of you.”

  I’d recounted every event in detail to all of them and privately again to Lilianna at least four times now. I had, of course, left out the dead body in the fountain, my father’s name painted in blood, and the charged conversation between the King and Queen.

  “Mm,” the Foundress agrees with a sharp nod of her head.

  I clear my throat of the tightness straining it. “I’ll greatly enjoy listening to any tale Lord Privett is willing to share.” I’ve not heard stories from outside Kheovaria since Father’s death.

  The Foundress chuckles and returns to her letter. “I assure you, he’ll be willing.”

  I smile and pick at the flimsy fabric of my dress’s wide boat-neck. Sleeveless. It’s been a whole debate. How much of my gold to risk exposing, given the wyvern attack on the palace not quite two weeks ago, versus how much to flaunt to the Prince. In the end, they elected for sleeveless and high-backed. I’ll only have the parasol to shield me from the sky. And the Prince, of course, to protect me.

  “Oh! Oh! He’s arrived!” Lilianna leaps back from the window. “Where do I stand? Do I sit?”

  Clara sweeps back into the room. “Must I always repeat myself? You will sit and stay sitting! If the Prince should step into this room, you will stand, curtsy, and sit back down. We went over all of this an hour ago.”

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  Lilianna throws herself onto the sofa as both the Foundress and I rise.

  Clara and the Foundress bustle to the door and I linger just beyond the foyer and out of sight, my heart pounding as I listen.

  The front door clicks and creaks open.

  “Your Highness, how wonderful to see you,” the Foundress says.

  “Good afternoon, Foundress Privett, Mrs. Clara Gallant.” Prince Emory’s voice is a smooth tenor. “I humbly request your permission to take the lovely Lady Aubrey on a ride this afternoon.”

  “Yes, of course, Your Highness,” Clara says. “Aubrey, dear!”

  I step dutifully into the foyer, painting a warm smile on my face. The Prince stands in the doorway, looking regal as ever in his crimson tailcoat, embellished with golden threads over the shoulders and the left breast. I dip in to a deep curtsy. “Your Highness.”

  “Emory, please.” He offers me his elbow.

  Clara makes the tiniest of noises—like a stifled squeal.

  I slide my hand in the crook of his arm and cast what I hope is a beaming smile up at him. “Emory.”

  His blue eyes sparkle. “The rain has kept us apart too long. Come, there is little time to waste. I have much to show you.”

  Prince Emory leads me out onto the brownstone’s porch to where Mr. Bens stands to attention beside Sebastian. My horse paws the ground and nickers to me, but otherwise seems to be respecting Mr. Bens’s handling—a true compliment to the man’s horsemanship.

  “You there,” Prince Emory says to Mr. Bens with easy lightness, but an unmistakable underthread of command. “Help the lady into the saddle.”

  Mr. Bens offers his hands as a steadying step between the porch and Sebastian’s back with the speed and ease of a man who has long served.

  I awkwardly put my foot on his hand, as I’ve never mounted a horse this way, and I do my best to put as little weight on him as possible as I slide into my sidesaddle. “Thank you,” I whisper as I gather up the reins.

  Bens nods and hands me my parasol, his gaze cast slightly downwards and respectfully unfocused.

  “I thought we might take a ride through the maze behind the palace.” The Prince swings into his own saddle with a swiftness his horse isn’t prepared for. She takes a few steps aside to counteract the sudden pull on the saddle and snorts with irritation.

  “Wonderful idea, Prince Emory.” I angle my parasol to shield as much of my exposed gold skin from the skies as I can, while Sebastian takes up an easy walk beside the Prince’s mare. Surely I am as safe as ever with the Prince, but I still feel exposed.

  Although… I cast a discrete gaze around. Prince Emory’s usual entourage of guards—or, at the very least the High Guard—is notably absent. Perhaps he’d instructed them to stay back a discrete distance to give us privacy?

  Sebastian snorts and prances, clearly excited to be out of the confines of his stall, as we make our way up Canal Street and towards the bridge to the Palace Grounds. Other nobles on horseback pause and crane their necks to watch us pass by.

  “Tell me, what are you enjoying most about your stay here in the city?” The Prince rides well, his horse collected and even paced with mine, but there’s a stiffness to his posture that’s out of tune with the animal beneath him. His chest is a little too upright, arms too rigid, and his grip on the reins a little tighter than his mare likes.

  Everything that first comes to mind are things I absolutely cannot say. The Foundress’s boisterous and defiant banter. Talking with Abel on the roof. Rescuing little boys and learning my father wasn’t at all who I thought he was… “Certainly our view of the palace. It’s breathtaking at night.”

  “That’s heavy praise from someone as beautiful as you.” He twists in his saddle to flash me a broad, white smile.

  Heat flushes my face. “I don’t know how to accept such generous praise.”

  His smile only grows, bright blue eyes fixed upon me. “Say you’ll walk with me along the canal here, one evening soon. Show it to me from your eyes.”

  The breath whooshes from me in a twisting swoop. He likes me. He must, to say something like that. Right? My heart gives a little lurch of hope. My home protected, Father’s name forever exalted, his legacy raised higher than anyone can dream. I can pull Farnell from laboring in the fields, possibly even make him a lower noble. I can give Lilianna the life she’s always wanted with all the dresses and jewelry she can dream of. Give our servants the estate to enjoy in safety, free to pursue their own happiness. Help children like the boy Abel fought for.

  I draw in a breath and look up at Prince Emory through my lashes, the possibilities so close I can almost taste them. “I’d be delighted.”

  He beams and takes my hand. He rubs his thumb over the spread of gold across my wrist. “You are so… stunning. Honestly, I’ve never seen gold like yours.”

  He reins in his horse to move closer to mine, pausing us at the start of the bridge to the palace grounds. His knee presses into the skirts of my dress and he twists in his saddle to run his hand up the gold of my arm. “Incredible. You deserve to walk freely, to not have to hide this from the skies. I want to give you that. I want to give you all the luxuries you can dream of.”

  My chest squeezes. My dreams aren’t made of luxuries, they’re made of freedoms. But with promises like that, perhaps that’s exactly what he and his throne can grant me.

  “Your Highness,” a menacing voice cuts through the Prince’s spell.

  The High Guard, Rahiid Venon, crests the bridge’s high point, his horse galloping our way, and he…

  He looks furious.