Alarmed faces stared down at me as I got to my feet. Gianne was kneeling across the limp form of Lorela, pressing the pillow to her face. In her shock at the sight of me, she released her grip on the pillow. As it fell away, Lorela coughed loudly, wheezing as she recovered her breath. Nobody ran to help her, and nobody seemed to care. Everyone’s attention was firmly on me.

I scanned the rest of the room, startled to find Mort standing in the hallway, in the guise of Doctor Ulani. He looked horrified by what I’d done, but what choice did I have? I’d done what was right, because Jareth wouldn’t. Ronad was still unconscious, his body splayed out on the ground.

The queen stared at me intently, her striking silver eyes narrowing. I could tell she was trying to place me. Sure enough, recognition dawned, Gianne’s eyebrows raising in surprise.

“You’re that little creature Navan had with him, aren’t you?” she whispered.

I nodded politely. “I’m part of the plan, Your Majesty.”

“The plan?” She shuffled off the edge of the bed and stood directly in front of me, more curious than suspicious.

“I’m bait, Your Majesty, to bring Navan back to your side of Vysanthe. This is his home, and this is where he belongs,” I explained, smiling sweetly. “Mr. Idrax only kept me a secret because he wanted to be sure Navan would take the bait. Mr. Idrax is eager to see him back here so you can pardon him, and he can marry his intended, Seraphina. He didn’t want to bother you with his family troubles until Navan had made it back safely.”

A gasp sounded from Aurelius’s turkey neck as his rheumy eyes turned toward Jareth with a look of hostile accusation. Clearly, he’d expected the marriage between Navan and Seraphina to be off, with Jareth allowing him to marry Seraphina instead. What he hadn’t taken into account was Jareth Idrax’s unyielding concern for his own reputation and status, above that of anyone else.

Haven’t you figured that out yet, you sick bastard? I thought.

As soon as Navan came back to the South and received his pardon, everything would go on as it had before. Despite the brief defection, the fact that Navan had been betrothed to Seraphina first still held a lawful sway. There was nothing Aurelius could do about it, though I couldn’t believe he’d been stupid enough to think that Jareth would just let him marry a woman who had been intended for his son.

“You will pardon Navan, won’t you, Your Majesty?” I asked. “I know he’d be grateful to be welcomed back into the fold.”

Gianne burst out laughing, though I didn’t know whether to interpret that as a good thing or a bad thing, considering the unpredictability of her mental state.

With a deranged twinkle in her eerie eyes, she tilted her head in a slight nod. “I will honor my pardon for Navan. I am a woman of my word.”

“You can’t be serious, Your Majesty,” Aurelius interjected, evidently irritated at the prospect of losing his “delicious” fiancée.

“You dare question my judgment?” She whirled around. He recoiled so far, I thought he was going to fall backward into Lorela. “I don’t care whom Serpentine marries. A marriage in the upper classes will be good for morale, which is needed more than ever during these times of war and strife. Seraphim is a rare beauty, and the people love to see a beautiful woman in a wedding dress, especially one who prances around with children all day. Now, I’d rather there was something handsome standing beside her at the Binding Font, to make the people even happier—give them something to strive for—but I really couldn’t care less.”

She grinned, her expression wild with excitement, as if some new idea had struck her. “Besides, when the marriage is complete, I will set Navan to work permanently in my alchemy labs. He will remain there, with his father, residing at the facility. Of course, I will permit the occasional conjugal visit with his lovely new wife. I am not a monster.”

Jareth frowned. “I’m going to reside there too, Your Majesty?”

“With your wife so sickly, I do not imagine there will be much to come home to,” she mused. “To fulfill my vision, to succeed in creating a functional immortality elixir, I require around-the-clock work. I have already heard some troubling mutterings that my sister is further along than we are. She may even have a working product, though we cannot confirm that yet. Either way, we must not permit the North to win!” she barked. “This time next year, I wish to have the immortality elixir flowing in the veins of every soldier in my army so I may send my fleet across the universe, to conquer every corner, no matter how small. I will be empress of it all.”

This woman had some serious delusions of grandeur. Her hair was thinning from stress and the tug of the tight braids. I could even see a few dried patches of blood where her crown had dug into her scalp. As vicious as she was, it was hard not to see the frightened girl lingering beneath the surface of the cruel queen she’d become. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to feel an ounce of pity for her.

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Jareth said solemnly.

By his feet, Ronad stirred, his eyes blinking awake. He took one look at what was going on and feigned unconsciousness again, squeezing his eyes shut. I wished I could do the same, but I’d made my decision. At least, this way, Lorela would live.

My mind drifted toward Navan. He was out there somewhere, with no idea what he was walking into. He didn’t know about the marriage; he didn’t know about the tunnels; he didn’t know about the mystery deal that Jareth and Aurelius had struck. When he did get back, it was going to be a lot to take in.

I tried not to panic at the thought of the upcoming nuptials. It would be hard to watch him marry another woman, but as soon as it was over, and Seraphina was safely out of Aurelius’s clutches, we all could escape together and cross the universe in search of more allies. I knew Seraphina wouldn’t come along for that; she’d already said there was no way she was leaving Vysanthe. So it would be a marriage in name only—a union of necessity.

Just then, more soldiers appeared in the hallway, though they weren’t dragging any stowaways with them.

“Anything?” Gianne asked.

They shook their heads. “Nothing, Your Majesty,” one said.

“Did you find the lab?”

The same soldier shook his head. “No sign of it, Your Majesty.”

“I can show you where the lab is, Your Majesty. There’s no need for all of this,” Jareth proclaimed.

She cast him a curious look. “Who’s to say we can trust anything you say, Jareth? You might be hiding two labs in this house, for all I know. You may have one for show, and one for use.”

“I assure you I don’t, Your Majesty.”

The lead soldier took a tentative step forward. “It’s okay, Your Majesty. We asked the weird one downstairs if he knew where the lab was, and he promised to draw us a map of the house, with the lab’s location marked in purple pen. I don’t know why the purple is important, but he insisted it was—he said we wouldn’t know which room the lab was if we didn’t color coordinate.” He looked utterly baffled, making it really difficult not to laugh. Kaido—ever the efficient mapper.

“Kaido told you where the lab is?” Jareth sounded bitter. My heart jolted. If Jareth punished Kaido for this, Kaido wouldn’t understand what he’d done wrong. He was fiercely loyal to his family and his queen, but he obeyed his queen above all else. He was just going by what he’d been taught.

The soldier nodded. “He said he’d draw us a map.”

“Was the other son around—the one with the severe face?” the queen asked, but the soldier shook his head. “Well, at least one of your sons has some integrity.”

Where was Sarrask?

“Your Majesty, might I make a small request?” I asked, feeling bold.

She frowned. “Haven’t you asked enough, creature?”

“There’s one more thing, Your Majesty,” I pressed. “Do you think it might be possible for Lorela to be taken to one of the royal hospitals, for further treatment? I’m sure she’d be better off there, under the care of your expert doctors, rather than here at home.” I neglected to mention she’d also need to recover from the side effects of nearly being smothered to death.

I flashed a knowing look at Mort, who was as far from expert as it was possible to be. Seeing his cue, he stepped forward and raised a hand.

“I would be happy to take her to one of the royal hospitals, Your Majesty,” he said.

“Doctor Ulani, I didn’t see you there. Why are you lurking in the shadows?”

He smiled. “I was on my way to visit with Lorela. We had an appointment to check how things were progressing with her incendiary gastrointestinal gesundheit. I thought it best to stay out of the way, with so many soldiers wandering around the place.”

“Her what?” Queen Gianne looked appalled.

“An ailment of the stomach, Your Majesty. A side effect of her brain-eating virus,” he tried again. My heart sank.

“Her what?”

“It’s best I just remove her, Your Majesty, in case she happens to be contagious. I would hate for you to catch something. In fact, had I known you were headed here, I would have sought to curtail your arrival—or at least made you wear a surgical mask,” he said apologetically.

Queen Gianne nodded, stumbling away from the bedside. “Yes, get her out of here!”

“Could one of you help me carry her downstairs?” Mort asked the soldiers. One of them stepped forward, tentatively reaching down for Lorela. He evidently thought he might catch something, too. It was the first time I’d seen her without a thick duvet covering her body, and the sight was horrifying. In the soldier’s arms, she looked like a skeleton. She’d lost so much weight, her limbs barely more than bones, her vertebrae protruding from her thin nightgown in uniform lumps.

Jareth watched her go, reaching out to grasp her hand for a moment, before Mort and the soldier took her from the bedroom, disappearing down the hallway to the shifter’s waiting vehicle.

“Might I go after my wife, Your Majesty? She really is very sick. She’ll worry if she wakes up and I’m not there,” he insisted. I wanted to call him out. Yes, he cared for his wife and spent time with her, but he wasn’t the one who’d been at her bedside every single day, calming her nightmares and easing her fever.

The queen shook her head slowly. “We are not finished yet.”

“Did you want me to show you the lab after all, Your Majesty?”

She smiled strangely. “Not quite.”

“Then what is it, Your Majesty? What more can I do to prove to you that I’m loyal?”

She turned to Aurelius. “Arrest Jareth Idrax for treason.”