Bianca did not bother to look inside each of the bedrooms. She took the one Tris said had a closet full of women’s clothes in it. She flung herself on the bed fully clothed, ripped off her boots, and got under the covers. Tris came in as well and built a fire in the fireplace. She fell asleep before she heard him leave. Her mind hurt from lack of sleep, and the only thought that crossed her mind was that nothing nefarious would happen if he were the only other person in the castle. What happened between them had not been love at first sight. It had been trust at first sight.

  Bianca didn’t dream. She tossed and turned, throwing her blankets off only to collect them again when the fire grew cold. Hours passed, and the sunlight that had filtered through gray clouds tilted and disappeared, only to be replaced with a darkness like death that Bianca was more than familiar with.

  And then came a snap.

  The first time she heard it, her nose wrinkled, but she did not open her eyes. The second time she heard it, she located where the sound was coming from. It came from the bedroom across the hall.

  Her eyes fluttered open. The castle was dim, but sconces burned in the hall and gave enough light for Bianca to see a lady exit the bedroom across the hall and head toward Tris’s tower. Bianca did not move. It was Rose Trine, dressed all in black with a cloak billowing behind her.

  When Rose disappeared down the corridor, Bianca got up from the bed and softly tiptoed across the room to peer around the door frame.

  Rose gingerly took the stairs to Tris’s tower and was soon out of sight.

  Bianca did not want to follow Rose even to find out what she was doing. Tris said he hadn’t seen anyone since he got there. Was this the first time Rose had visited, or did she just visit when he was asleep? What was she doing to him?

  Bianca cursed under her breath. She did not want to get involved. Tris had asked her not to go to his room. He had said her going into his room would be like stripping him.

  Bianca sighed. That meant he certainly did not want Rose going into his room either.

  Bianca steadied her nerves and hurried down the hall after Rose, swearing and cursing under her breath the whole way. She went up the circular stairs until she heard words.

  Rose was uttering a sleep spell. Bianca covered her ears. She was quick enough that the spell didn’t drop her like a rhino on the steps up to Tris’s room. She knew the spell because it had been used on her to keep her from going to balls until she got wise to it. There was an odd-sounding word combination in it that made her think of the words ‘fair feathers falling on fine furniture,’ though that wasn’t exactly it. Bianca didn’t speak witch, but it was all the f sounds in the spell that alerted her. The spell spoken quickly made the witch sound like she was not really a person but instead wind blowing and twisting through branches, leaves, and dust.

  It also meant that Bianca couldn’t stay there. She wouldn’t know when Rose would be done speaking the spell, and she didn’t dare enter the room. Instead, she decided to examine the room Rose had clearly come from. Maybe it was the way Tris could leave, too, and maybe that was more important than whatever Rose did to him this one night, especially if she had been doing it all along.

  Back down the hall, Bianca went, entering the room and finding another lady’s bedroom. She checked the closet first, but found nothing, just a stone wall behind a rack of clothes. There was a powder room off the bedroom, which, to Bianca’s astonishment, had a full bath. It was almost impossible to see what the room contained. There were no sconces, and though there was a window, there was no moon.

  Then she heard steps.

  Whatever Rose had done to Tris, she was already finished. Bianca dove across the hall to the room she had first occupied and hid around the corner. A minute later, after some repressed breathing and light footfalls, Rose was gone.

  Bianca’s first thought was to race up the stairs and ask Tris what had been done to him, but she couldn’t do that. She had to wait until he came out of his room of his own accord.

  She went back to bed. Rose was probably the only visitor they would have that night, or any other night.

  ***

  Bianca was up before Tris, stalking the hall like a crazed animal.

  He came down the steps, sans cravat, and wiping his face as he had just had a good shave. “What’s the matter?”

  “How are you this morning?” she asked, getting right up in his face.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Sleep well?”

  “Who’s sleeping well in a cursed castle? I never sleep well. Sometimes I sleep hard, like I’m dead, but I wouldn’t call that well.”

  “Did you sleep that way last night?”

  “Yeah. I sleep like that most nights. I sleep so hard, it’s hard to reverse it and wake up. You’re awfully curious. Why?”

  “Rose was here last night. I saw her go into your room.”

  Tris took a step back in shock. “That’s… upsetting. What did you do?”

  “I went to the room she came from and tried to figure out how she came in.”

  “Show me.”

  Bianca took him into the bedroom and straight to the powder room. “I think it was somewhere in here.”

  Tris looked around. There was no logical place she could have entered. The whole thing was stone, without a seam anywhere that could have opened. “Think she opened a portal?” he asked weakly.

  “If she did, she closed it between her coming and going.”

  He paced around the room slowly. “And you didn’t follow her into my room?”

  “No.”

  “Why do you think I didn’t wake up when she came into my room? I’m very sensitive to sound and don’t usually sleep for long periods.”

  “She cast a sleep spell.” Bianca sighed. “If I’d followed her and I heard it, I would have fallen asleep too, and she would have found me. Would you have preferred that?”

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  He put out his hands in a gesture that showed he didn’t know how to answer that question. “Given that you saw her enter the room and saw her exit the room, what do you think she had the time to do during that time period?”

  “Hardly anything. She was there for so short a time, the only thing she had time to do was rob you.”

  “I don’t have anything worth robbing. I didn’t come with anything. I landed in this castle with only the clothes I wore to the ball that night and my crown. I wish someone had spiked my drink with a mild poison beforehand, like you had done to you all those times, so I didn’t have to go to the ball. A night of vomiting sounds far preferable if it lands me in a prison like this.”

  Bianca smiled. “Is that what happened to you? You were at a ball, and you danced with her?”

  “Yes, I danced with her,” Tris snapped a trifle waspishly. “I was supposed to meet her. She had been writing me letters for months.”

  “Why was she writing you letters?” Bianca asked softly.

  He looked sheepish. “Because I’m the third-highest-ranking Archpriest of the Demon God, Tigrix.”

  Bianca said it before she meant to. “That’s hot.”

  “Yes. It is,” he agreed.

  “I didn’t even know a person as young as you could be an Archpriest,” she breathed in astonishment.

  “Yeah, well,” he explained impatiently. “That’s the one bonus of being a prince. Rules get waived for you. My father, the King, is the highest Archpriest. His brother, Temption, is the second. I’m the third, and my older brother, Rion, is the fourth.”

  “How’d you skip your brother?”

  “He’s not allowed to enter into combat, since he’s the crown prince. His title is merely an honor. There are no rites associated with it.”

  “Then, how did your father become the first...”

  Tris interrupted. “He was a second son. His precious older brother died from a fever. No one was expecting my father to be crowned. I wasn’t even born a prince because in my kingdom, a prince’s son has no title until they are awarded lands.”

  “And you can do… the thing?” she dared ask.

  “Yes! I can do the thing!” Tris growled impatiently.

  “If you don’t mind me asking… Which?”

  Bianca was dancing around her question, but priests and archpriests of the Demon God Tigrix were granted the blessing of turning into an enormous wild cat. There was no limit on what kind of cat it was, and Bianca wanted to know which.

  “I can turn into a serval, but no one knows what a serval looks like, because no one knows anything about cats. People are such appallingly lazy worshipers of Tigrix, it’s sick.”

  “Wait. Wait. Wait,” Bianca interrupted. “I am not a follower of Tigrix. I worship Swaneve, like a good little girl who was raised in Forest Spire, but I know about your father and your uncle. Your father can transform into a clouded leopard. He’s four times the size of a man, and the markings on his sides make him look like he’s half cat, half snake. And your uncle is a black lion with a head large enough not just to bite a man’s head off, but his shoulders, arms, and half his torso. Legends!”

  Tris was surprised. “And you haven’t heard of me?”

  Bianca nodded. “Those were stories told to me because your father and uncle visited our nation. My father was afraid of an invasion from Sun Vine until he spoke to them. He was expecting gruesome villains, and instead he got learned masters who prized education. They were only visiting because they wanted to adopt my father’s system for water wheels. They only visited once. After that first visit, they sent tradesmen to be educated by us, and that was it. My father thinks very highly of your father.”

  Tris looked at her, eyes fixed on her face. “That doesn’t sound like you’ve heard of me, but of my family… who everyone has heard of. They’re royalty.”

  She shook her head. “I’m out of the loop. I said I was only at two balls and missed out on thirty. I only heard that it was a shame for all women that you were already married to Rose Trine. That was it. Why was she writing you letters?”

  He hesitated, vaguely embarrassed. “They were fan letters.”

  “Fan letters?”

  “Yes,” Tris whined in embarrassment. “I used to get fan letters regularly. It probably sounds stupid to you. You were always so busy taking care of more serious matters, but the highlight of my day was once the sweet little love letters ladies of the entire continent used to send me.”

  “The entire continent?”

  “Yes, I have even received fan letters from ladies in places I had never heard of. I was surprised and delighted when I started receiving them from a princess of Sap Stone. Their country is warlike, and I was pleased that a princess of their country thought my prowess in battle not just noticeable, but praiseworthy. She wrote to me once a week for months before I met her at a ball.”

  “Was that fun?”

  “It was. Until she told me what she wanted me for.”

  “What?”

  He cleared his throat and spoke slowly. “If you tie a magically inflamed torch to the end of an Archpriest’s tail, and he runs through a kingdom, what do you think happens?”

  Bianca thought about it, images appearing in her mind, while Tris continued talking.

  “It sets fire to everything. Barns go up in flames, fences, forests, fields, anything. Anything that is not stone burns. Her king has his eye on a nation to the south, Frondwick, and she wants to help her father take it without collateral damage to their army. You see, if they take their army south, they’ll enrage the allies of the Frondwick, and Sap Stone will have two, maybe even three armies on their doorstep with their muskets loaded. But if I burn the place to the ground, Sap Stone can come in and ‘aid’ their neighbor and take it with so little fuss that no one would even realize it was an invasion.”

  “Surely, someone would take you down while you were making the attempt.”

  He smirked. “Before anyone had even realized what was happening, I would have already done all the damage necessary for the kingdom to be ruined. I am faster than a horse, turn better on my paws than any other animal in the world, I see well in the dark, hardly sleep, work on nothing,” he groaned, and then face-palmed himself. “I told her all that in my letters and more. Far, far more. I’m the world’s biggest fool. I should never have bragged about my blood pact with Tigrix. It’s for emergencies, defense.”

  Bianca frowned and said sympathetically. “Was she very beautiful at the ball where you two met?”

  He shrugged. “No. I was surprised.”

  “Huh? But I thought Rose was supposed to be one of the most beautiful princesses our continent has ever seen. She didn’t live up to it?”

  Tris shook his head, irritated. “You’re better looking, and you look dead. No. She wasn’t beautiful unless you think a naked snake is beautiful.”

  “I’ve never seen a dressed snake.”

  “Neither have I. At least I hadn’t, until I met Rose. She is a dangerous woman. She’s going to burn the whole world down and call herself the phoenix for helping it rise from the ashes. She’s not my wife.”

  “But she wants something from you.”

  “I bet she hadn’t changed her mind about getting me to burn Frondwick to the ground. If she got me to do it while I was her beau or her husband, all the allied kingdoms would suspect it was me. They’d raise an army to come after me. She’s going to keep me here until everyone has forgotten all about me. That will be her moment to use me, force my involvement. She’s going to ruin every last bit of my life.”

  Bianca thought carefully. “From what I have understood about her, the three different parts of her personality don’t always agree with one another,” Bianca said, raising a hand to her chin. “I think it would be safe to say that her stained side, the priest of Tigrix side, wants you to use your feline powers to their most destructive potential, but what about the other parts of her? What does the witch who sneaks into your bedroom at night want?”

  Tris snorted. “What does any woman who creeps into a man’s bed chamber want?”

  Bianca shook his suggestion aside. “Seriously, she wasn’t there long enough for her to have molested you much. That can’t be her goal. I think she had to come in in order to maintain your prison, or to speak another kind of spell on you… a long one. One that makes you do what she wants. And what about her king side? I think that must have been the side of her that blabbed that lie that you married her.”

  “You’ve got to find out if she comes in tonight and what she does while she’s here.”

  Bianca placed a hand on her hip. “How am I supposed to do that if I can’t come into your room? That’s the only place she went.”

  “I’ll help you.”