GOOSEBUMPS CRAWLED THEIR way up Ladislas's arms and shivers racked his spine as he raced to the queen's bed chambers. A pit settled to the bottom of his stomach—he had just seen a ghost. She had been so absurdly real that he could still feel her frigid hand pressed against his alabaster cheek and smell the intoxicating redolence she had left behind.

       Ladislas began picking the dried paint from the back of his hand; his movements were shaky, laden with anxiousness. This was impossible. Milady de Nova had risen from the dead.

       Father ordered her execution himself.

       The blood left his face and his skin grew ever sallower, ever greyer, like that of a corpse.

       She burned until nothing remained but a pile of ashes.

He ran a hand through dark hair, which fell back into his eyes once his arm had dropped to his side.

She's dead, she's dead, she's dead.

       Though the sound of his shoes pounding against the floor was steady as the beat of a drum, the thud of his heart was anything but. It was completely erratic, sending blood surging through his veins and contributing to a racing pulse.

       When at last he reached his destination, he propelled through the double doors and then threw them shut with such fervency that the floor shook. Ixidor was standing by the babies' cribs, holding one of them to his chest while Roswina and Raolet sat at a round table, conversing wordlessly with hard stares and lip twitches. Upon hearing the disturbance the prince had created, all of their gazes cut to him. The tension was thick and obscuring as rolling fog.

       The oldest prince rose from the table and swept towards Ladislas, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Lad, what's wrong? What happened?"

       Ladislas directed his gaze towards his mother and spoke directly to her. "I saw Milady de Nova, I—how—how is this possible? She's dead—she b-burned at the stake seven years ago, but I just saw her!"

Ixidor put the baby in his arms down and rounded the room to stand by his brothers.

       The queen's reaction flabbergasted Ladislas. Painted on her freckled face was not an expression of shock, but one of crestfallen disappointment. The bags beneath her eyes had become even more pronounced than they'd been after she had given birth, and her cheeks were gradually losing their healthy glow.

       "You're not as surprised as I thought you would be," the younger prince stated, biting his lip. "Was she what you wanted to discuss with us?"

       "We will discuss the king's whore later, Ladislas," she responded dismissively, a slight bitterness weaving its way into her words. "There's something else that I must first tell you. The three of you."

       Roswina lifted a hand, signalling for the guards, courtiers and governesses to part from the room. All left, with the exception of one man. Ladislas had seen him before; he must have been one of the guards. The man disregarded an incredulous glare from Ixidor and moved briskly to the queen's side. She, on the other hand, did not act as though he was out of place at all—she seemed to want him to stay. She beckoned for her sons to take seats at the table and each did reluctantly, eyeing the guard beside her.

"Your father was not bothered as much as he should've been by the attacks on your siblings because he did not consider them a threat to this kingdom or a ploy to forcibly take the throne. He has been focusing on improving his own security rather than finding the culprit. But if he expected me to stand idly by, he was sadly mistaken."

Amid the evident spite in her tone, there was also a certain determination that reminded Ladislas of her immense strength.

"My children were murdered and I needed to find out why. I hired him," she continued, gesturing to the man at her side, "as a spy—he was to go to the village and learn of the killers' motives."

       "Wait, wait," Raolet interrupted, holding his hand up. His eyebrows pulled together at the bridge of his nose. Worry laced his trembling voice, which he lowered, almost as though he could not bear to utter his concerns. "Mother, is this considered treason because of the fact that Father doesn't know about it?"

Ladislas sank into his chair with a grimace; he hadn't thought of that. Raolet, ever the level-headed and wise one, always thought of everything—every consequence, every outcome—even when no one else did.

       Queen Roswina's face remained set and stoic. "It isn't treason if he never finds out about it. And he never will, for I trust my boys completely."

       "Mother..." Raolet sighed.

       "I will be fine, sweetheart," she reassured him, unwavering. "I can handle the king. Now, Matheus will tell you what he has found out. It's very important that you are aware of it, should you ever need to protect your siblings. In case anyone ever makes an attempt on their lives. Go on, Matheus."

       The spy sighed and twirled the end of his moustache nervously between his thumb and forefinger. "There was a prophecy surrounding the three youngest children born to King Warrenus and Queen Roswina of Naryllitsa. For now, Her Majesty's last pregnancy, along with the triplets, have been kept a secret from the rest of the kingdom. That was why the perpetrator was mistaken and murdered the wrong three children."

       "So this supposed prophecy," Ixidor drawled, disbelief tainting his features, "was referring to the triplets, then. But why? What could possibly make them such a threat to anyone? They're just helpless infants." He pursed his lips and glared at the spy accusingly. "If you ask me, I don't believe a word of it. Prophecies don't exist. Are you entirely sure this wasn't just told to you by some drunken fopdoodle?"

"Ixidor," Roswina snapped scoldingly.

"Or perhaps a false story planted to throw people off and prevent the criminals from getting caught?" interjected Raolet.

Matheus shook his head, then turned to Ixidor. "You don't believe in prophecies? I'm afraid that is where you are wrong, Your Highness. I think it wise for you to listen to what I have to say."

       There was something about the way the queen looked at the spy she'd hired that made Ladislas want to believe him.

       "What did this prophecy say?" Ladislas quipped.

       "Though I was not quite able to retrieve each word of the entire prophecy," said Matheus, "I do know what it was about. It stated that the three youngest were to possess a power that could overthrow any kingdom and seize any empire. They were to be what the prophecy referred to as 'Kismeki'—" He paused abruptly, turning towards the queen to gaze upon her countenance as he spoke the next words. "The Fates."

As heavy as they were, they remained suspended in the air for quite some time. All three princes turned to look at the cribs that held the babies at the very middle of the mess.

       "Haven't you noticed that there's something unique about them?" Roswina muttered gently. "I know you all have. It's not unnoticeable; they are special."

"You believe this, Mother?" Ixidor asked; he was not as skeptical as he had been previously, but rather seemed to be seeking validation.

The queen nodded. "And you must as well. We must agree that what happened that night was unnatural. There were no signs of trauma on the bodies, for God's sake—it was as though their souls had been stolen straight from their bodies! And the flames that burned the lisianthus garden were red and left it completely barren. There is a higher power involved in this."

"So we must make sure," Raolet began slowly, frowning, "that no one ever knows that they exist. And if anyone is to find out, we protect them with our lives."

Ladislas shuddered while silence reigned.

Then, when he deemed it appropriate, he asked what he had been wondering for the past few minutes.

"What about Milady de Nova? Why is she still alive seven years after being burned at the stake?"

"Because your father is a weak man," Roswina stated, scrunching her nose. "Dastardly, but a coward nonetheless—especially when it comes to women that tempt and entice him. He must have allowed her to live without the knowledge of others."

Ladislas found that he disliked the way Matheus was looking at his mother, though he couldn't quite put a name to the look. He ignored the nagging feeling of unease that prickled at the back of his mind.

"But she died before a crowd, didn't she?" he asked. "Do you think... that it had anything to do with all of this? Do you think she really did die seven years ago, but somehow... came back?"

"I believe that she seduced the king until he agreed not to kill her; then he found an innocent woman with an appearance similar to hers and burned her at the stake to hide that fact that he'd saved a criminal from the death sentence. It must be something of the sort—it seems precisely like something he would do."

The prince nodded in agreement—but after all that he'd heard tonight, he couldn't quite overlook reincarnation.

"I think it's time that you three went off to bed," Roswina said, rising from her seat. She walked over to Ixidor, Raolet and then Ladislas, pressing a kiss to each of their foreheads as she passed. "I know that this is all overwhelming for now, but I hope that you can think it over and that it might soon seem less ridiculous to you. And remember," she said, whispering this part as she reached out to touch Ladislas's cheek, "not a single word to a single soul. I love you, darlings."

As he got to his feet to depart, he thought how—unlike Milady de Nova's—his mother's touch had felt fond, warm and welcome.