The feel of her skin seemed burned into my fingertips as I followed my friends through the city, everything and everyone we passed an unfocused blur, my mind back in the throne room with Pénélope.

I hadn’t intended for that to happen.

Tristan and I had planned this ruse for weeks, but all thought of plots and politics had fallen away with her standing next to me. The spicy scent of her perfume had risen to fill my nose, her magic pressing up against mine right up to the point that it wasn’t, our powers melding together in a way I hadn’t known possible. A level of intimacy I’d dreamed of, yet never experienced until that moment.

But it had been nothing like touching her.

The feel of her rapid pulse beneath my fingertips had chased away all rational thought, the soft intake of her breath making my heart race. It had taken Tristan slamming the throne room door to bring me back to the moment, and I’d had no choice but to drop her hand or risk missing everything. Though in hindsight, missing Tristan’s performance might have been worth it.

“You’re an idiot,” I muttered to myself. Pénélope almost never attended the public audiences, so it was no coincidence that of all the places she could have sought me out, it was there. The Duke had probably sent her to distract me – or worse, to see how I reacted to Tristan’s proposal. It was all just an act on her part.

But it had felt real.

It had felt right.

I shook away my thoughts as we entered the path leading down to the flooded stadium, Tristan keeping up the act of being irritated until we were well out of sight. Then he abruptly picked Anaïs up off her feet and whirled her in a circle. “You are brilliant. That couldn’t have gone more perfectly.”

“Not even if your father had agreed to change the law?” I asked, coming up behind them.

“Wouldn’t that have been something?” Tristan replied, setting Anaïs back on her feet. “Fortunately, the Duke was there to argue against it. The last thing we need is our schemes bolstering my father’s popularity, which a change in this law would most certainly have done.”

This was an area where Tristan and I disagreed. Hundreds of half-blood lives would be saved by the King changing the laws. Yes, it would weaken momentum for the sympathizer cause, but that seemed a small price to pay. I counted every life saved, every small victory, as worthwhile, but for Tristan, it sometimes felt like it was all or nothing. I tried to temper him, to make him see those he was fighting for as individuals rather than pieces of a grand plan, but there were days I believed I’d have more luck getting water from a stone. “You might consider how much damage you’re doing to your own popularity.”

He shrugged as though he couldn’t care less what the half-bloods thought of him – what anyone thought of him – and said, “I’ll so offend to make offense a skill, redeeming time when men least think I will.”

“Be careful to whom you quote poetry written by a human, or people will start to question the veracity of your behavior.”

“Exactly,” he responded. “This is how it has to be, whether I like it or not. When I tear down the system of their oppression, they won’t care about my previous conduct.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but I said nothing as his expression brightened, eyes having lighted upon the twins.

“Rise up!” Vincent shouted from where he stood on a floating platform with his sister.

“Your timing was perfect,” Tristan called back. “All those sheets of paper flying through the air the moment we stepped outside the gates – couldn’t have done it better myself.” He ran down the worn steps to the banks of the lake, then slid across the water on a sheet of magic until he stood between the twins, where their banter continued. I went to follow, then hesitated as I caught sight of Anaïs’s expression. “Is something wrong?”

“Pénélope.” She sat down heavily on an eroded step, staring blindly out over the water. “She heard me laying the trap for my father last night, and she thinks I don’t care about half-blood lives. That I sabotaged any chance of the law being changed. That I’m no better than our father.”

I sat next to her. “That was part of the plan. She can’t know that you giving your father that information was intended to bait him into riling the half-bloods into action – toward joining the revolution – because it would raise too many questions about your true loyalties.”

“I’m aware.” Her tone was biting, though I knew it was directed at the situation, not me. “But the way she looked at me…” Anaïs sighed. “There is no one individual to whom I’m telling the whole truth. On some level or another, I’m deceiving every single person in my life, and trying to keep track of it all…” She rubbed a hand across her eyes. “I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know what I want.”

I silently considered her admission. Anaïs was not a sympathizer by the true definition of the word. She believed power mattered: that half-bloods and humans were not our equals. Yet she was as dedicated to the success of the revolution as the rest of us. Not because she might stand to benefit from Tristan taking the throne. Rather, it was a feeling deep within her core that those with power should use it to protect those without, and she seemed to take every loss of a half-blood life as a personal failure.

Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I finally asked, “Are you going to tell Tristan the truth about why your father has decided to move against him now?”

Anaïs exhaled softly, then shook her head. “This is why we can’t trust Pénélope with our secrets.”

There was no anger in her voice, only resignation, so I waited to see if she’d say more.

“I don’t want him to know about the betrothal.”

“Why?” I asked, curious, though I knew I was walking on dangerous ground.

She twisted a ring around one finger, the gemstones winking in our troll light. “Because he’d feel obligated to do something,” she finally said. “He’s not always rational when it comes to his father, Marc. You know that better than anyone. If he learned his father had broken our betrothal, he’d bond me for no other reason than because his father said he couldn’t.”

“I think he’d be more motivated to undo the hurt you’d endured than by spite,” I countered, knowing how protective my cousin was of her.

Anaïs wrinkled her nose. “That’s worse.” Her hands grew still. “I want him to choose to bond me because he loves me or I don’t want him to choose me at all.” Turning her head, she stared at me, unblinking. “Are you going to tell him?”

“No,” I said, admiring her bravery even though I could see it costing her in the end.

“I didn’t think you would.” Her eyes drifted to Tristan, whose face was still bright with excitement, and her lips curved with a sad smile. “You’re the only one who understands what it’s like to love someone, to be willing to do anything for them despite knowing that you’ll never get to be with them.”

Though I didn’t think it was intended to do so, the sentiment was like a punch to my gut. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Pénélope safe,” I said.

“I know. You’re the only one I trust her with.” But her hands still balled into fists. “This plan of ours is working for now, but it won’t work for long. I’m afraid… I don’t think I can bear to lose her. But the only way I can see to protect her is to kill him.”

Her father.

“When Tristan talks of killing his father and taking the throne, I know he sees it theoretically,” she said. “As a step in his plan. But when I think of doing the same, I imagine it as it would be. The way it would feel to twist his neck or plunge a knife into his heart. What it would be like to pull him apart as a child might a spider. I see the blood on my hands.”

A tremor ran through her and I didn’t know what to do or what to say, because Anaïs so rarely showed any form of weakness. To acknowledge it might do more harm than good.

“I know he’s evil,” she continued. “I know he’s a villain and that he opposes everything I’m fighting for. But he’s still my father.”

“It might not come to that,” I said, knowing my words were hollow because they did nothing to alleviate the fear growing in my chest. “All we need to do is play our parts until Tristan makes his move, then we can pluck Pénélope from danger and your father can learn to live under a new regime or face the consequences.”

“I know,” she said, rising to her feet and stepping out onto the surface of the water. “But I’m afraid that by the time Tristan’s ready, it will be too late.”