WINTERS IN THE LEHUAN EMPIRE WERE brutal, but the blisteringly cold wind pushing against Valencia nearly a month before the cold usually seeped in made her realize that the day's weather was not just a coincidence. The empress pursed her lips as she replayed the moment she heard the ear-peircing roar of thunder in place of a bomb exploding. The fog that seeped in right after seemed to bring the cold in with it.

Valencia shuddered inside her tent, where a heating system attempted to keep her warm. Ronan made it back from the bomb site and Valencia couldn't contain her smile when she saw her friend returning safely.

"What happened?" Valencia whispered.

Ronan swallowed. "I don't know. The bomb. The fog. The cold. In the lakes, where Andreas was born. Then he shows up with Dr. Oberlin, who dare I say is more a magician than a physician. Do you see what I see?"

"The bomb is...dark?" Valencia couldn't say the word.

"And Fowler knew!" Ronan chuckled, eyes glassy, "And I told her that she's crazy. Oh, Ophelia, come here."

Valencia peered over her shoulder at Detective Fowler, who grazed towards the pair with her lips pursed.

"Ronan," she said.

"Forgive me," he asked of her, "I see what you mean now. The bomb is made of dark magic and it must have caused the cold."

Valencia looked at Ronan first, then at Ophelia, whose big, brown eyes craved the attention she got. "How did you know, detective?"

"The serpentine symbol," Ophelia explained, "is an ancient symbol of enchantresses from..."

Valencia raised an eyebrow, thinking that Ophelia couldn't speak any slower.

"The Redlands," she finished.

"The Redlands?" the empress shrieked so loud that everyone in the tent could hear her.

Ronan shooed away everyone's attentative glares, then said, "Well what does that mean?"

"The queen of The Redlands was at the midsummer ball," Valencia rambled, "She was having a good talk with Elliot of all people and she was right there when the news of the bomb came in. Ronan, the queen was right there!"

"Uh, let's not jump to any conclusions, Empress," Ronan stopped her, "However cunning Queen Reyna is, she has no plausible reason to attack us. She would have made it known to us that she's behind the bomb by now anyway. I think this is someone else, someone with connections to the enchantresses. Fowler?"

The detective nodded. "Oberlin. He's with the enchantresses all the time to learn their magic."

Valencia glanced at the doctor, whose hands were in fists at his sides, skin red hot with anger or embarrassment — Valencia couldn't tell — as he spoke to Andreas Stone. Is he really your enemy, her devil whispered, causing Valencia to stiffen, will your really believe your detective again? After she lied to you once?

She didn't want to listen to him. Valencia wanted to trust her detective, but it was hard to trust a woman who seemed jealous of the empress.

"That's circumstantial," Valencia pointed out. "I need solid proof to blame someone for attacking the lake villages."

"If we're talking circumstantial," Ronan added, "what about Elliot showing up after burning down a respected Lord's home just a few weeks before the bomb? Why was he speaking to the queen of the Redlands, where the enchantresses are from?"

Valencia looked at Ronan, blinking. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"What I'm saying, empress, is how well do you really know Elliot?" Ronan said. "I mean, where even is he now?"

The empress swallowed, realizing that she didn't know much about Elliot, except that he was arrogant and rash. But what did that matter to the dark magic that taints her empire?

"How do we undo this?" Valencia looked between Ronan and the detective.

"I hate to say this, empress," Ophelia disclosed, "but Auden Oberlin might be your only suspect. As the one person in the Lehuan empire who practices magic like it's his religion, he played dumb when I asked him if the bomb contained magic. So we need to get a confession from him soon, and a solution will be quick to follow."

"What if he's not the only person in Lehua with magic?" Valencia asked, getting a questionable glance from both Ronan and Ophelia.

"There are two more people who hold dangerous magic," she continued, "and they want me dead."

•   •   •

HOW NAÏVE YOU WERE, the devil whispered, to think your actions would not catch up to you.

Even inside the car, the empress felt the chilling air of black magic seeping through the vents. Her devil taunted her disastrous mistakes, making sure she understood how badly she messed up. Just over a year ago, she recalled her devil encouraging her to do the same things he now says were mistakes.

Disgusting, he shamed her.

Murderer.

Valencia pulled the blanket tighter around her. She swallowed hard, wishing she disappeared that night in the pool. She would be far from the lake villages and farther from her past eating her alive.

"Don't beat yourself up over all of this."

She glanced up the man behind the voice, not at all expecting for him to speak, let alone try to comfort her. He glanced at her through the rear-view mirror as he drove her and her entourage, grey eyes pained and somehow deep with regret.

"I wasn't," Valencia told him.

Yet she couldn't shake the feeling that no matter how much she tried to be a better empress than Cyra Stone, she really was no better than her.

"I know you don't want to hear this," he said, "but there's only so much you can do. You care about them."

She scoffed at him. "How can you talk about me as if you know me? As if I know you, Elliot?"

Ronan glanced at her, wide-eyed. Elliot's lips were straight. The silence cut the air.

"You know what?" Elliot said, eyeing her in the mirror, "You act like you're the best goddamn thing to happen to Lehua, but listen up, stop being such an entitled bitch. While you live in your majestic palace with real heating and food, everyone else in the satellite states freeze in the winter. You saw the lake villages. Those people are poor, even when the villages make so much money off of tourism. What are you really doing for Lehua other than letting the poor become poorer?"

Entitled, the devil whispered. You see this? He doesn't know the way you starved, the way you were beaten, the way you killed for change to happen.

Ronan spoke up first, "You don't know what you're talking about. Valencia has been empress for only about two months now, so you can't expect the empire to be anew so fast. And we're working towards positive change. Just you wait and see."

Valencia's mind went into a downward spiral. She recalled being one of those poor villagers, working so hard for a morsel of food. She craved warmth that thin blankets could never provide.

Did she really lose her purpose?

No, the empress thought. The devil made his choice to make Valenica the empire's savior.

"He's right," Valencia decided on saying. "We have to work harder to end their suffering. But first, this black magic must be ridden of. Are we all clear?"

They hummed in agreement.

Valencia asked Elliot to be honest, and he was just that.