I followed the sound of piano music through my home, finding my mother seated before the lacquered instrument, fingers flying across the keys, sightless eyes staring off into the distance. The composition was something I’d heard her working on for weeks, and I sat silently on a chair, listening until she’d played it through. My mother was a composer of high regard – a guild master; her talent was what had caught my father’s eye, and what had allowed my grandfather to see past her common bloodline. And her blindness.

Fingers growing still on the keys, my mother turned her head to me. “Good afternoon, dearest.”

“Good afternoon, Mother.”

Rising to her feet, she crossed the room, delicate filaments of her magic guiding her steps. With unerring precision, she tweaked my hood aside to kiss my cheek. “Your aunt has invited me to dinner, so I cannot linger.”

“Is Father home?” I asked, pulling my hood back into place, my eyes going to the bonding marks on her hand to see if the silver had grown any darker or duller, a sign of my father’s diminishing health.

“In his study,” she replied, her face falling ever so slightly. “Perhaps you might convince him to take some rest. He attended His Majesty all morning, and you know how that drains him.”

That was because attending Thibault de Montigny felt much like walking a tight wire over a bed of knives. “I’ll try.”

My boots sank into the plush carpet as I climbed the curved staircase leading to the second floor, my eyes stinging from the brilliantly lit crystal lamps spaced to illuminate the elaborately painted walls and ceiling. It was my great-grandmother’s work, but it made me think of Pénélope. I painted you as you are, because I love you as you are…

I’d never believed it possible that she’d feel that way about me, but she was no more capable of lying than I was. And that kiss… If there was a chance, any chance at all, I had to take it.

The two servants cleaning in the corridor dropped into low bows as I passed, but other than inclining my head, I did not engage them as I might otherwise have done. Knocking on the door to my father’s study, I hesitated only a moment before entering. “Father?”

He did not pause in his writing, and my chest tightened at the whiteness of his hair that only a short year ago had been as black as my own. Setting down his pen, he dusted sand over the paper and then looked up. “I thought you were with His Highness?”

“I was. But he had a meeting with the Builders’ Guild scheduled to discuss the tree.”

“He’s too young to be responsible for the lives of an entire city,” my father grumbled, setting aside his papers. “Thibault erred in that decision, which any of his advisors would have said if he’d bothered to consult us. Never has seen reason when it comes to that boy. The tree’s magic holds half a mountain-worth of rock off Trollus. It is not something to be given as a birthday gift.”

“Tristan was pleased to take it on, and his mind is suited to the task,” I said, hoping to end this line of conversation. I wasn’t here to talk about my cousin or his feats of magical engineering.

“A boy should have a chance to live before being saddled with such a burden. I wish you could have longer.”

My stomach clenched with unease. “You need to work less. Rest more. If the King knew…”

“The King does know, Marc.” He met my gaze. “Being considered indispensable by a ruler has its privileges, but also its costs. He will use me until I am dead, and then my responsibilities will fall to you.”

I sighed. Besides the honored duty of holding the key to the labyrinth, the maze of tunnels running through the rock surrounding Trollus, my father was also responsible for the vast task of keeping the city fed. I’d no doubt that it was the stress of his duties to the King and Trollus that was driving my father to an early grave.

“I know,” I said. “But that isn’t what I’m here to talk about.”

My father leaned back in his chair, and though his skin was dull, his eyes were still shrewd. “If this is to be a serious discussion, pull that cursed hood off. I want to converse with my son, not with shadows.”

Reluctantly, I pulled it back. “What would you say if I told you I wished to be bonded?”

His grey eyebrows rose. “You’re a bit young for it.”

“I’m seventeen.”

“I’m aware of your age.” He watched me silently for a long moment. “You’ve someone in mind?”

I sucked in a deep breath, wishing I had more confidence that this would go as I hoped. “Pénélope.”

For a few seconds, he didn’t react. Then a grimace crossed his face and my stomach dropped. “You have to know that could never be.”

“But–”

“I can understand why you’d want this. You two have long been close friends.” He sighed. “She’s a beautiful, talented girl, and a sweeter disposition one could not ask for. I dare say there isn’t a soul in Trollus who doesn’t wish fate had been kinder to her. But her magic is weak – she might well be the weakest full-blooded troll alive.”

“I don’t care about that.” What did it matter if her magic wasn’t strong? It wasn’t as though she needed more than she had for any practical purpose. The only reason it was important was that it had been deemed so by those who had power. It was exactly that way of thinking that Tristan and I wanted to eliminate from Trollus, but I dared not confess so. Even to my father.

“And maybe if that were her only flaw, it wouldn’t matter.” He set down his pen. “Marc, she’s afflicted.”

A vision of Pénélope’s painting drifted across my mind. “But so am I!”

My father’s face filled with sympathy. “It’s true that you’re a fright to look upon. But…” He shook his head. “Your affliction is purely cosmetic. Your health is good and your magic formidable. But Pénélope… Even if the Duke agreed for her to be bonded, for you, it would border on suicide.”

“You don’t know that,” I countered. “She’s careful.”

“Childbirth would kill her, if some small accident didn’t.”

“She doesn’t need to have children. There are ways to prevent it.” I didn’t know much about such things, but I knew it was true.

“Fallible methods,” he snapped. “And one mistake would mean the doom of both of you.” Lifting a hand to his temples, he rubbed them. “I’m fading, Marc. It will only be luck if I last another year before my light goes out. And when it happens, in all likelihood your mother will be taken too. She who is strong and healthy…” He broke off, face filled with naked grief. “Please don’t make it worse by putting your own life in danger.”

It made me feel ill to have upset him this way. Nearly everyone I knew had contentious relationships with their parents, but that wasn’t the case with me and mine. I didn’t care to think of losing them, and I didn’t want to make their final months harder than they had to be.

“It won’t be long until you’ll not need to ask my permission,” my father continued. “But in the matter of bonding, you will always need the crown’s approval. And the King will not approve a match that endangers your life.” He dropped his hand from his temples. “Your life is not your own, Marc. Your loyalty must be to your cousin above all else. He needs you, and most of all, Trollus needs you to keep him in check.” He hesitated, as though unsure whether to say what was on his mind. “Thibault was not always this way. Perhaps if I’d been as good a friend to him as you are to Tristan, he might’ve walked a different path.”

So strange to think of Thibault having friends and of my father being one of them. Did my father keep as many of the King’s secrets as I did for Tristan? What were they? And if I asked, would he tell me? These were important questions, and if my loyalty was to Tristan, those questions were what should command my focus. But I was tired of my life revolving around my cousin. For once, I wanted to do something for myself.

“The King isn’t the only one who can give me permission,” I said. “Tristan can give it, too.”

“I know,” my father said, his voice quiet. “But please think long and hard about what it will mean for your friendship if you ask for his permission and he refuses to give it.”