Elian had come back from the solar late the night before; tight-lipped, unharmed, alive. I had spent hours pacing the confines of my chamber, my skin still prickling from my own disastrous audience with the Queen earlier that evening, before Elian had even been summoned. She had touched my face, a brief, freezing press of fingers against my cheek and the voices had started almost immediately after. I hadn't told him that. He hadn't betrayed me but neither of us knew who had. My mind went straight to Seraphina, but I had no proof.
By noon, the walls were closing in. I needed air that didn't taste like a threat, so I went looking for the one place in the palace that hadn't turned poisonous yet.
The winter sun sat high and cold in a pale, washed-out sky, throwing sharp, jagged shadows acros
