I should have been enjoying the festival.
Everyone else was.
Lanterns floated above our heads like captured stars, music pulsed from every direction, and the air smelled like sugar and burnt caramel. People danced, laughed, and kissed under hanging lights.
But I wasn’t present. I wasn’t anywhere.
I was pacing.
My boots moved back and forth across the hall outside the ballroom like I was wearing grooves into the marble. Kiyan leaned against the wall, arms folded, watching me like I was a glitching hologram.
“It wasn’t Kitty,” he said for the fifth—no, sixth—time. His voice carried that tone of forced patience he only used when he thought I’d lost my damn mind.
I ran my hand through my hair and exhaled sharply.
My mind was a warzone, replaying those eyes, Kitty’s eyes, the assassin’s
