The cold dagger bites into my throat, the blade slinking up to meet the base of my jaw. I grip onto the sides of the book in hopes of that keeping me alive and sane. The magic roiling underneath my skin wishes to push out through my fingertips, but I dig my nails into the leather to keep that second life quelled.

A warm breath cascades into my ear, laughing viciously underneath a veil of silence. This is it. After surviving this long living in the palace and traveling back to the village every two weeks, I'll meet my end by a stranger that has possibly stalked me from the beginning. I hate to think this is Cloak's doing after he spoke so strangely in his chambers, but the dagger's cold press keeps me from thinking far into it.

The back of the chair traps me from falling backward, as does the crouching beast threatening to take my life. I think my heart might pound right through my chest. Then, a touch of familiarity in their laugh. A dark rumble that I heard right before Aela launched me over the bridge and into serpent infested waters. I scowl and reach up, shoving the blade away.

Aela appears around my shoulder, smirking broadly, and flips the dagger back into the sheath at her hip. "Leave me alone," I snap.

She makes no promises. I look back down to the open page of the book, the illustration of the Raven Queen looking out her balcony into the distance, hoping to spot her sister. The swoops of the brush bleed into my vision, but I can't focus on them. Especially as Aela comes around to the other side, still chuckling about instilling fear, and slouches down into the other chair.

Her arms drape broadly over the armrests and she crosses her ankles together, chin forming double as she looks down at the rug below our chairs. "I wouldn't dare spill blood in the library," she contests. "Truthfully you had nothing to worry about."

If I ignore her, she might grow bored with my company and leave on her own. Propping my temple against my fist, I flip the page to Wyetta surrounded by a group of armed forces—loyal members of the Void Forge she abandoned to become queen. She changes them into Luminaries, all-powerful members of magic, and urges them to do the same. Kidnap children and young adults, leave the old to die but take their youth. Build an army and bring them to her. The sharp tilt of the words scribbled over the page scream dictator instead of the former queen. A woman out for revenge.

Aela pouts. "Are you still angry at me for tossing you over the bridge like a sack of potatoes?"

Hot air blows out through my nostrils. "Actually, I am," I grumble. "I almost died, and you did nothing to help. You left your brother, and the rest of the Panjandrum Corps, to save my life."

"Truthfully, I didn't believe you'd survive that little mess, but I wanted to test your strengths. When I saw you surface after disappearing so long, I figured you might stand a chance out in the real world instead of your hole of a village." She toys with the fringes on the armrest, sticking her nail underneath the brass buttons.

I give a deadpanned stare. "Should I be grateful that you are showing some acceptance of me?"

"Of course not. I still hate your guts."

At least she doesn't lie about her lack of care for others. Ignoring the burning rage ready to strike like a viper in my stomach, I force myself to turn the page. Both on this conversation and the book. The two queens meet after Wyetta overcome her fear of the palace. She arrived, alone, and met with her sister. They shared a meal of wine and cheese, and the eldest told of her days building up her forces to combat enemies.

Millicent Terravale didn't agree with the kidnapping of children. The killing of their parents. Things got out of hand, Wyetta promised. They survived, that is all that matters.

"Are you ready for the ceremony?" Aela asks.

I hardly glance up from the page. "As ready as I can be," I mumble.

"Your whole family will know; the entire kingdom. The princess coming from a distant land hoping to turn Cloak in her favor. They'll see everything." Her eyes widen in fake amusement, and I don't receive a kind feeling from the smirk yanking on the corner of her mouth. "Your husband, too. He'll discover your lies and everything you did to go against him. What a pity."

As if I haven't thought of everything already and what will happen after Claiming's Eve. I will face Rylan again, just under different circumstances.

I try to apply confidence to my voice, and say, "I don't care. I am doing this for my protection. Yet, I don't see why any of this matters to you. Unless you plan on killing me in this library."

She tips her head back and laughs. Her fangs gleam in the dim light. "Cloak would go on a rampage if he discovered you without breath, and the first person he'd assume is me." Aela drapes a light grey hand over her chest like that is an honor rather than a testament to her personality. On her middle finger, her mother's ring sticks out against a dull tone. The silver catches a stream of sunlight and gleams, practically shimmering for our amusement.

"I think anyone would fluster if they noticed a dead body so deep into the library that it takes days to find," I say.

That, she snorts at. "The librarian would be the first to pick out the smell. By that time, Cloak may have forgotten about you."

I roll my eyes. It is possible. He spends most nights with women he doesn't know, hardly any that arrive a second time. They leave in the mornings, pouting like they failed to meet his desires through hours of passion. I never bothered asking him why he chooses to go through so many women he doesn't make an effort to learn the name of, but it is not my place. I am only the person meant to heal his ailments.

He never shows disappointment, nor hatred towards those lonely women. Most of them hail from the capital, and he'll never see them again if he doesn't stumble into the same taverns or follow the bend of the same stone streets. Yet, when I arrive in the mornings, he seems unfulfilled. Those women dulled the ache, yes, but they weren't what he was looking for. Another question I won't bother asking.

She picks at a fraying strand of fabric sticking out the side of the chair, wrapping the strand of honey orange around her finger and pulling tight. I don't protest when she mars the chair further, ripping the sheet of material that someone carefully put together—possibly hundreds of years ago. "He has been antsy in recent days," she reveals, seeming as though she might be talking to the air and not me at all. "Since he returned from the docks, he spends most hours alone in his chambers. No drinking, no women."

"What does that mean?" I ask.

Her fawn eyes, close-set, wide, and intimidating, bore into mine. "He's focused on something."

A raspy, airy laugh escapes my lips. "That doesn't mean anything. Everyone behaves in their own way when they're focused." If only my mind was as easy to convince as my mouth.

"When Cloak focuses on something, he doesn't let go until his plan is complete."

I can't help but take that as a warning. Schooling my stare into boredom and unclenching my hands from the book, I rest my chin on my fist. Aela watches me, studies, rather, as I shift my full attention to her. Cloak was difficult to figure out, but she is another competition entirely. "What do you believe has his focus?" My voice is steady, untroubled.

She shrugs. At first, I think she may avoid answering to build the suspense and the anxiety assembling like steam inside my stomach. Something wasn't right with Cloak, and something else persuaded me that it wasn't battle plans that made him bounce his knee or chew on his fingernails. His mother handed over duties before and he never made such a fuss, so much that I wasn't allowed to see the words written cleanly over a fluttering piece of parchment.

He plans everything out. From the smallest of missions to the largest of ventures into the Rootbeak Wastes, Cloak writes out a step-by-step plan that fills in all the holes if something goes wrong. The memory of the distant parchment rises in my mind. The handwriting didn't belong to his mother; the list had his uneven strokes covering it from top to bottom.

That means nothing. He may have received something from his mother and had to write out a plan for others to use. But why wouldn't he show me? I shove the thought away, the wonderment of betrayal.

Aela grins wide when I come back to life. She realizes how quick it is to get underneath my skin. "I don't know what he's focused on," she purrs. The chair pops and groans when she leans forward, bringing her muscled body to hunch over her knees. She drops her voice to a whisper. "I may not have the faintest idea, but I know this. Like everything else over these past few months, it revolves around you." That grin curdles into a snarl.

"Nothing in Cloak's life revolves around me," I contest. "We see each other for two weeks every month, then we part. His focus is elsewhere."

"You don't see how he behaves when you're not here." She waves me off. "He's like a lost puppy that doesn't regain control over his body until he spots you again, skipping down the halls with your notes and feather quills." Pulling at her ear, she looks to the shelves behind us, studying the titles without caring for what she's seeing. "Half the time, I can't stand to look at either of you. Together, my hatred becomes much worse."

I blow out an annoyed breath and shut the book in my lap, crossing one leg over the other. "Then when why are you sitting here, talking to me?"

"Perhaps I have grown bored with everyone in this palace," she says. "So I came to the most boring of them all, looking to restore my faith in a royal's many wonders."

I take her insult with a grain of salt and stand from my chair. She watches me, like a predator assessing prey, and stands as well. She towers over me, same as her brothers. Suddenly, my ability to say anything snarky shoves itself deep within my being and I'm left with my normal squeak of a voice. "I'll see you on Claiming's Eve." My voice hardly rises above a whisper and I'm left to listen to her silent laughter as I depart, shoving the book back onto the shelf before I go.

Her words don't strike me until the stuffy, thick library air fades away. My mind clears and thrusts itself back towards Cloak. What she said...it can't be true. We help each other, but not enough that his personality darkens when I'm not around. That is not healing, that is finding relief in someone else and expecting them to dull the pain instead.

I haven't healed Cloak at all. I gave him a short-term solution that will wear off once I'm gone. How long will it take before word gets around that the prince, Jett Terravale, lost his head after failing to comply with his mother's orders? I shudder and wrap my arms around myself, unable to come to terms with the illusion of his lifeless body.