The workers had left their stations more than an hour ago. The sky was now a convincing twilight, and there could only be an hour until curfew, just enough time to get home if I ran. Mother would be back by now, and I was certain if I wasn’t back before curfew, she’d actually worry for once.

I’d spent the day thinking about all the things I should’ve done if I hadn’t been completely flustered by having two of the king’s guard following me. Like asking one of the children to run a note to mother, telling her to pack, or how about staying at The Crane’s Nest last night instead of taking a moonlight walk and being spotted by the king’s Drae and getting into this stupid mess?

Next time I decided to take a moonlit walk, I was going to slap myself. Twice.

Except for now. Because I was taking a moonlit walk now.

From tomorrow onward, if I ever even thought about a moonlit walk, I’d slap myself twice.

The skies had been empty all day, but before I moved, I gave the sky a last anxious scan.

Nerves twisted in my gut, making me eager for the moment Mum could take over the decision-making. Prior to this trouble, I’d thought myself a capable person, but I was learning this wasn’t true at all.

I kept low, opting to scuttle through the fields with the high growing vegetables and fruit for extra cover. Snake and Toady weren’t following me; I was certain. I’d taken considerable care losing them in the Quota Fields of Zone Six. Then I’d dodged through five before hiding in the fields of Zone Eight for the day.

Thirty minutes later, I was back in the fields of my own Harvest Zone. If I could make it over the Market Circuit and through the fountain garden in the Money Coil, the rest of the way to our house in the Wheel would be easy.

I sprinted across the Market Circuit and all the way to the edge of the fountain garden. I pressed myself to a brick wall as I stared up at the sky, panting hard. The stars were just starting to wink into life, and I took a deep breath before turning my attention across the garden.

My feet faltered, and I nearly had a heart attack when I glimpsed the man standing in the shadows opposite me.

He wasn’t a soldier—they all wore the same blue or green uniform with a black trim. This man wore solid liquid black, perfect for sneaking. I blinked several times to get rid of the blur his clothing had going on with the shadows, almost as if the dimness clung to him. My eyes were obviously feeling the strain of the day.

“Psst,” I whispered to him across the gap, determined to be a good neighbor. “You shouldn’t be out here, mister.”

I couldn’t see his face, shadowed as it was, but he was tall and muscular. I’d crossed over into Seven, and the thought came to me that this man better not be Arnik playing tricks. I’d kill him.

The man turned to me, just his head, and I gave him a pointed look. “Well? What are you standing there for? The king’s Drae is out and the soldiers, too. You need to get on home before curfew.”

The man jerked, as if surprised I was addressing him.

I rolled my eyes. This one must’ve dropped his acorns when he was fighting for the emperor.

“You see me?” he demanded.

Oh, brother. It was sad, really, what happened to men after war, but Mum said manners didn’t cost a thing. Using the politest tone possible, I asked, “Are you usually invisible?”

The silence following my remark was drawn out. In only a few seconds, it became awkward. I shifted, debating whether I should leave him, but something about his surprise held me back. His mouth open and closed several times, and then he answered, “Yes.”

He took a step toward me, still cloaked in shadows, and my heart stopped.  

It wasn’t that I immediately connected his single word reply to what it meant.

Not at all.

It was that the insects stopped their chatter and the night became heavy exactly as he took that step.

One step and the world held its breath.

I’d been thinking about the night sky and the thing it concealed too often in the last two days to miss the connection. This man wasn’t lost. As my bones rattled inside me, I knew. The deathly quiet was confirmation a predator had found me. The king’s Drae was right in front of me. The shadows appeared to cling to him because they knew him. My heart sputtered in my chest, and rushes of blood sounded in my ears. I hadn’t blinked. I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t breathe . . .

Lord Irrik.

I took a deep breath as a billow of heat pushed against me from where I stood just beyond the center square. The warmth swirled around my legs and caressed my arms, and I felt an urge to flee and stay at the same time. Play it cool, Ryn.

“Al’right. You take care now,” I said in a hoarse voice. I willed my legs to move, but they seized as the inky darkness melted away and the famed Lord Irrik glided completely out of the shadows. My heart pounded, the thundering loud in my ears. A sliver of rational thought processed the danger I was in.

“You see me,” he repeated, stalking closer. But his words were no longer a question. His statement was a confirmation of what we both knew.

Death stood three paces from me, and I couldn’t move. My mouth dried as I stared at the man who I knew turned into a terrible beast. My gaze dropped, taking him in. He wore black boots, black breeches, and a sleeveless aketon that hit mid-thigh. His clothing fit like a second skin, revealing a lean build that was nevertheless all muscle. His fists were clenched, and his muscles flexed as if ready to strike.

I was going to die. I knew it as certainly as I knew death shouldn’t look so good. Not when it was already invincible. I’d heard Lord Irrik was beautiful, that even knowing he would bring death, looking at him would almost make up for it. My mother left that part out of my bedtime stories, but the women here talked.

His dark eyes narrowed, and he asked, “What are you?”

I frowned at him. Huh?

The Drae’s face didn’t change, except for a flicker of annoyance. “Let’s try a different question then. Why are you out after curfew?”

As he spoke, he flicked a lock of dark hair away from his face, and I embarrassed myself by flinching in the most horrible way, expecting him to strike me. He smirked again.

My mouth was parched, and it took several attempts before I could voice my almost incoherent reply. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the time.”

It was true. This time. I’d thought I still had half an hour.

He didn’t seem to hear. My words bounced off him onto the chipped cobblestone ground. He took one step toward me, and I took three back before hitting the coarse stone wall.

“I won’t do it again,” I whispered, pressing back. “I promise.”

The scream lodged in my throat as he crossed the remaining space in a blur my eyes could hardly trace. I turned my face away, lifting an arm out of instinct. My mother would never know what happened to me. Mum. I had to keep him from her.

I straightened but jerked when I saw his face inches away. I tried to meet his eyes but focused on his chin instead. Then he leaned forward, blowing a long breath into my face.

I clamped down on a scream because I knew what that breath would do to me. Why else would he breathe in my face? A Drae could turn anyone into a puppet with a single exhale in close range.

He looked at me expectantly, and I looked back.

His square jaw was covered with a day’s worth of growth, but it did nothing to distract from his sculpted lips, the lower slightly fuller than the top. It made him appear sterner, adding to the terror his air of darkness inspired. His nose was straight, and his deep-set eyes appeared to be the same color as the inky night. I couldn’t tell if his pupils were dilated so wide I couldn’t see his irises or if his eyes were really that onyx black. His hair was liquid coal, like the color of his clothes, and confined at the base of his neck. The sleeveless aketon exposed plenty of his neck, and his skin was warm like the burnt sugar Mum made on Solstice celebrations.

I swallowed and waited for the moment I would lose all control of my mind and body. Had it already happened? Though his breath smelled sweet, I didn’t feel like I was losing control. I wondered if I would know when his power took effect. Would I care when I betrayed my people? Would I care when he finally killed me?

“Last night you left The Crane’s Nest after a meeting. Who were you with, and where can I find the others who were there?” he finally asked. His voice was different than before, like the warmth of embers on a cool morning, a beautiful rumble that calmed my frayed nerves.

“My friend. She lives just up the road.” The key to lying was to tell as much of the truth as possible and keep the important information concealed. Should I be able to reason like this? Maybe the breath thing wasn’t true, but then why had he unleashed a lungful on my face?

He chuckled, and more of his sweet breath surrounded me. It was more than his breath, I realized. He smelled good—his body or whatever—like sunbaked pine and dried sandalwood. I started to lean forward, and he sighed, shoving me back against the wall in irritation.

Get that a lot, do you?

“Who is your friend?” he snarled.

There was no way I would tell him about Dyter or Arnik. “Why? You want to visit her, too?”

He furrowed his brow, and the disinterest on his face lessened for the first time. “What?” He eyed me for a long second and took a deep breath, blowing it in my face again.

I frowned at him. “Can you stop that? It’s kind of really, really strange.”

He jerked, eyes widening, and took a step back, almost seeming to stumble as he whispered something in a different language, not taking his eyes off my quaking form.

Drak, I should’ve kept pretending, maybe I could salvage the situation. I smirked at him, feigning unfocused eyes, and said, “I can take you to meet Syla if you’d like?”

“Stop pretending.” He growled. “I can tell.”

A snicker escaped. As soon as it sounded, I slapped my trembling hands over my mouth. Mistress Moons! What was wrong with me?

The intensity with which the Drae studied me cocooned us, and the rest of the world disappeared.

“You can see me. You’re resistant to the droplets in my breath.” He studied me, his gaze intense and penetrating. In a low voice, almost to himself, he murmured, “It can’t be.”

He didn’t wait for me to babble an answer but brought his hand up in tiny increments, his expression rapt as he circled the back of my neck. His warm palm connected with the clammy skin at the nape of my neck, and I shrieked. Fire licked where our skin touched, the warmth spreading from where his hand tangled in my hair, sending tendrils of pulsing energy all over until I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. I screamed again, but this time the sound was muffled against his shoulder. I’d fallen, or he’d pulled me.

He ripped his hand away and stared at it with what looked like betrayal as I fell to my knees.

He swore long and hard again in the language I didn’t know. Some of the same surprise I felt was echoed within the guttural sounds he made. He sounded shocked.

“That wasn’t in the bedtime stories.” I squeezed my eyes closed to rid myself of black spots. What just happened?

“Where are you going right now?” he asked in a different tone. Gone was the disinterest. Something very different took its place in his expression. His gaze darted behind as he turned toward the fountain, scanning the dry space. “There are people coming.”

“Snake and Toady.” If my luck was continuing in the same stream.

“Who are Snake and Toady?” he asked in an urgent tone.

I batted his hands away. Why was my body drained of energy? The back of my neck was pulsing. I moaned, “My tails.”

What the hay did he moisturize his hands with? Or was this some other Drae power no one talked about?

His face froze. “Tails? Soldiers?”

I didn’t answer.

Anxiety crawled between us, originating from him. Was his magic finally working? There was no sense of compulsion, and I guess if I was able to contemplate lying, I had my answer.

“I was going home,” I slurred with fatigue. “Don’t kill my mum,” I said. “Please show her mercy. I’m just the soap queen. I don’t know anything important.”

He wasn’t listening. In the same way I didn’t pay attention to buzzing flies. The darkness reached for him as he grabbed my arm and yanked me toward the other end of the alleyway.

“Hey,” voices shouted behind us. “Halt!”

“Drak,” he swore in a hushed tone.

I stumbled to keep up with his long stride. He couldn’t walk me home; Mum was there.  “If you’re going to kill me, could you please do it now?”

He didn’t answer.

I was terrified, tired, but I felt the first strains of anger begin to wriggle inside.

We ducked out of one alley and into another then crossed over into Harvest Zone Six and backtracked to a laneway near the square in Zone Seven before heading toward the Wheel where I lived.

“You need to get out of here.”

He spoke for the first time in several minutes.

What the hay was going on?

“Let go of me,” I demanded. I tried to pull away from his grip, but he held tight, his long fingers circling the entire width of my bicep with a strength that told me he could break my bone just from losing focus.

Irrik closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why are you even in this kingdom? Do you want to die? You need to be gone. Right now.”

The intensity of his words made my skin crawl, and the burn of his stare made me want to quiver at his feet like a mouse before a hawk. What he was saying didn’t add up. “What?”

“The soldiers saw us,” he said, his voice low. “I don’t know how you’re . . . alive. But you need to leave. I’m going to try to fix it, but I can’t risk . . .”

He made no sense, yet his warning seemed sincere. I stared into the stone-cold face of the king’s Drae and could have almost mistaken the wild look in his eyes for. . . fear.

“What is wrong with you?” The wriggling in my stomach swelled, and anger laced my voice. “I thought you were going to swallow me.”

His fear made me furious. What did a Drae have to fear? “Why are you so upset? Because—”

He grabbed my shoulders and said, “Listen, girl.” His grip tightened. “I’ll give you this warning once. When I let go, run. Run home. You and whoever you live with need to get out of here. Do you hear me? You must never come back.” He shoved his face to mine, eyes blazing. “I’ll kill you myself if I see you again.”

My brain rattled in my head as he shook me. The upheaval of his emotions was too much, and I wrenched myself from his grasp. “Stop. Please!”

He let go, but continued snarling words I couldn’t hear through the increasing buzz in my ears. He watched me, his eyes lit with an intensity I’d never seen before.

My nerves were frayed. My emotions were taxed past the point of being reasonable. Something inside me recoiled with a sharp snap. For the first time in my life, I raised my hand and slapped someone across the face.

We stood in the dark, empty alley, staring at each other as I lowered my hand.

My chest heaved with emotion, and he shuddered slightly as though about to explode. The outline of where my thumb and index finger had connected with his skin was visible in a pink welt. “I’m so sor—”

“Get out of here,” he gritted out, shoving me toward the next corner.

I took flight, sprinting through the streets as though the king himself was behind me, which in many ways he was.

Eventually, I calmed enough to recognize the outskirts of the Inbetween.

I adjusted my course, and as soon as I was in our housing section, I slowed. I was breathing way too loudly for creeping, so I put my hands on my knees, taking in deep gulps of air while I waited for my heart rate to settle.

The night was warm and dark; this normally brought me comfort. Instinctively, I looked to the sky, but instead of stars and the inky canvas I loved so much, I heard the beating of wings spread wide, far above my head. He was there, I knew, invisible against the sultry night. The beating sound moved in a circle overhead, and my skin prickled with the awareness of his attention as, I assumed, he waited for me to go inside.

The king’s Drae knew where I lived.

Comforting. That wouldn’t give me nightmares at all.

I gave myself a mental shake and rolled my shoulders back until I stood tall. Doing so was the last thing I wanted to do, but it made me feel better to appear dignified when I’d been obliterated with fear ten minutes ago.

Circling our home twice, and finding no signs of Snake and Toady, I cracked open our front door to slip inside and talk with Mum. I peered up at the night sky one last time, unable to resist, a bolt of fear splicing through me as a set of fiery reptilian eyes burned into mine from the darkness high above.