Mouth frozen in a smile, eyes black as twin hollows.

“You should have let yourself dream,” said Ioseph, but the voice was not his, and came from over her shoulder.

She whirled, but when she opened her eyes, it was to find herself twisted on the floor of her room. Her nightgown clung to her, soaked through with sweat.

Corien stood above her, clearly amused.

“You insist upon turning every sweet thing I give you into a horror,” he told her, and then pulled her to her feet and held her as she wept. She curled her fingers into his black coat, wishing she had the strength to claw at him. But the dream he had sent her had left her trembling. Her arms were liquid, useless.

“It could be like that,” Corien whispered against her damp hair. He rocked with her as if soon they would dance. “Life could be happy again, Eliana, if you let me make it so for you.”

She knew he was right, and she shut her eyes with an ache in her chest, remembering the warmth of her father’s smile. Her quiet home in Orline. Rozen Ferracora’s garden, the kitchen table strewn with Rozen’s tinkerings. Remy safe in his bed, reading aloud from one of his books, and Harkan asleep just across the way.

• • •

When Eliana awoke, Simon was standing over her, an urgent light in his eyes. A sword glinted at his hip; strapped to his chest were two revolvers.

“We don’t have much time,” he said, helping her sit. “Listen carefully, for any moment he will discover I’m gone, and all will be ruined.”

She stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s a ruse, Eliana. It’s all been a lie.” He found her hands and kissed them. “I’m sorry for it, but it was the only way to protect you. I could not risk your life.” His voice broke as he spoke against her fingers. “It’s been torment to deceive you. Every moment I see you suffer is agony.”

Relief flooded her body, her skin tingling. She felt light-headed, weightless.

“I don’t understand,” she said, but left her bed to follow him. He had gathered supplies. He was holding out a cloak to her. At the door, Remy kept watch. His hair was shaggy, unkempt, and fell to his shoulders. Bruises marred his skin as if he had borne the fall of a hundred fists, but his eyes gleamed triumphant in the moonlight.

“We have one chance to escape, and it’s tonight,” Simon said, ushering her toward the door. “Follow me.”

But she refused, planting her feet at the threshold. Something was wrong. There was a sharp metallic patter in her mind, and she could not dislodge its rhythm. It was familiar. She had heard it before.

“El, we have to leave!” Remy whispered from the door.

“Gunshots.” She looked at Simon, the memory rising fast. “You shot them all in Festival. You gave orders to the angels.”

He hissed out an impatient breath. “It was all a lie, Eliana. Aren’t you listening?” He grabbed her wrist. His grip was awful, merciless. “Walk. Now.”

But she knew the truth: She could trust nothing she saw. Her entire world had become lies of Corien’s making.

She awoke quietly in the dim light of her room, her face wet with tears, and found Corien sitting on the edge of her bed.

“I’ve hoped for that,” she said, her voice cracking with exhaustion. None of her sleep felt true anymore. “That there was a reason for it all besides deceit.”

“I know,” said Corien, his voice a croon of sympathy. He touched her cheek, rearranged her mussed hair.

Fresh tears turned her white room shapeless and bright. “What a fool I am,” she whispered. “What I fool I have always been.”

“I can make this stop,” came his tender voice, wheedling and kind. “You know I can. All I ask for in exchange is—”

“I’ll die before I help you.” She glared at him through her tears, trembling with a sudden spike of rage. “You can send me a thousand sweet lies, a thousand nights of promises, a thousand dreams of everything I wish for and everyone I have ever loved, and my answer will be the same.”

His silence then was utter, terrifying in its stillness.

She waited, tense, trying to decipher the black expanse of his gaze, and when the burning of her eyes became unbearable and she blinked at last, he was gone.

• • •

When Eliana awoke, she was in the white room from her dreams.

“Good morning,” she called out cheerfully to her attendants. She stretched and yawned, then swung her legs out of bed and into the cool air. In her nightgown, she wandered the broad sunlit hallways of her home and wondered, as she always did, at her own wild fortune. She heard birdsong and hummed along. She plucked a red flower from a vase and inhaled its sweet perfume.

At last, she came to twin narrow doors of dark polished wood, their bronze handles fashioned into flaring wings.

Corien stood at the threshold, wearing a brocade coat of ebony and midnight blue. The embroidered pattern glinted iridescent, like a blackbird’s feathers.

Eliana’s joy died. A lie. It was a lie. This was not her home. It was Corien’s.

“No,” she said, and stepped back from him. Soon she would awaken. She knew the pattern by now. She would come to in her room and see him watching her, listen to him comfort and coax her.

Guards arrived at her elbows, forcing her forward into the shadowed receiving hall where they had first met.

“Another dream?” She laughed, grasping wildly for bravado. “I didn’t realize you would be so tiresome.”

Corien said nothing, gliding past her.

“I have a gift for you, Eliana,” he said smoothly, and as Eliana followed him, stumbling between her relentless angelic guards, two figures in the shadows came into view.

Simon, his eyes flat and cold, his body all tidy sharp lines in the black imperial uniform. Square shoulders, gold buttons, red sash.

And Remy, standing beside him, thin and pale and dressed in a plain tunic and trousers, the fabric torn and stained. Eyes wide, hands in chains, lip bloodied.

Eliana’s stomach lurched, but she stayed where she was. She clenched her fists and kept her voice calm. “I’ve seen this before. I’ve seen a hundred Remys, and some of them looked just like this.”

“Remy Ferracora,” said Corien, circling the room. “A famed storyteller, I’ve heard.”

“El?” Remy’s voice was hoarse. His eyes darted wildly from Eliana to Corien to the doors. “What’s happening? Where have they been keeping you?”

Eliana did not reply. She would not participate in this. Not again. Not ever. For too many nights, she had believed what she saw. She had attempted escape. She had been home in Orline with her father, with Harkan. She had been on a white shore with Simon, in a gray cottage that was all their own.