A glint of metal caught her eye, and she glanced up into the mirror over the bowl. Her collar was unlaced, and Kell’s ring had slipped out, and hung swinging on the end of its leather cord, the ship winking in the light. She tucked the black band back inside her tunic, but her gaze lingered on her reflection.
Two eyes stared back at her, both of them brown, one real, the other glass.
Unlike the eye she’d traded to Maris, a relic from her life back in Grey London, this one was a perfect match. As far as Lila could tell, she was the only one unsettled by the sight of it. The eerie sameness, the symmetry forged by magic, a glimpse at how she would have looked, if her real eye had not been taken as a child. Back when—as she knew now—Lila had awakened as an Antari.
She held her own gaze, inclined her head until the light caught on the surface of the glass, interrupting the illusion. The brown eye had a purpose—it helped Lila to blend in, to move unnoticed. But when she was alone, or on the safety of her ship, she never wore it, opting for the black one Maris had given her, the one she would have had if she’d slept aboard the ship, the one that made her smile whenever she caught her reflection in a puddle or a pane of glass.
She was not smiling now.
She pushed off the basin, reclaimed her blades, and her boots, and her coat, and set out to find Kell and a cup of strong black tea, not necessarily in that order.
* * *
Word had obviously spread that the Antari were in residence.
None of the guards drew their weapons as Lila emerged from the royal suite, made her way down the hall, descended the stairs. Below, the palace was unfurling, like some giant flower, its petals turning to the sun. Servants bustled, opening doors, adjusting rugs, trading out yesterday’s bouquets before they even began to droop.
Where, she wondered, did the day-old flowers go?
Probably into the bath water.
As Lila moved through the palace, servants stopped, and bowed, frozen like statues in the middle of their work. Two brown eyes or otherwise, they knew what she was, and they looked at her the way they had looked at Kell, their expressions ranging from respect, to reverence, to fear. But unlike Kell, Delilah Bard welcomed their trepidation.
She was halfway down a branching hall when a servant rounded the corner, facing her. There was plenty of room, yet he sidestepped and pressed his back into the wall as if it were a sin to take up space while she did.
“Have you seen the prince?” she asked.
The servant didn’t answer, not at first, as if she were addressing someone else. There was no one else, at least, not in earshot, and when he finally seemed to realize that, his gaze twitched up, stopping somewhere near her chin. Lila sighed. If there was a protocol for this, she’d never learned it.
“Well?” she pressed.
“Mas arna,” he said, bowing deeply again. My lady. Lila grimaced. She hated being called that, as if she were some ostra mingling at court.
“Call me Captain,” she said.
The servant hesitated. “Apologies,” he said. “But your rank here outweighs that title.”
“My rank?” she ventured, assuming he meant Antari. She was wrong.
“Your rank, as someone promised to the prince.”
Lila stared at the servant, and felt the sudden urge to break something. The air curdled around her, and he must have sensed it, because he shrank back.
“Tell me,” she said slowly. “What do you call Kell?”
“Mas vares,” said the servant.
My prince.
“And if he were a commoner?”
The servant ducked his head. “As Antari, he would still be mas aven.”
My blessed.
“Excellent,” said Lila. “Then call me that. Now,” she went on, scanning the hall. “Where is your blessed prince?”
The servant pointed her toward the breakfast room, and she set off again. She found the glass-walled chamber overlooking the courtyard, its long table laden with sweet buns, and pies, and fruit. She was about to go in when she heard a sound across the hall.
A small, joyous laugh that could only belong to Ren Maresh.
There, at the far end of a sun-drenched gallery, Lila found the child sitting on a step, and at her side, light glancing off his copper hair, was Kell.
Ren was chattering softly, and cupping something small and white in both her hands, and Kell was nodding soberly, his coat cast off beside him on the floor, and his sleeves rolled up, his face turned just enough for her to see his blue eye, and the way his lips moved as he spoke.
He didn’t see Lila, and perhaps that was why she lingered, studying the gentle incline of his head, her fingers drifting almost absently to the ring beneath her shirt. Until she heard the sound of footsteps drifting toward her, not the hushed and hurried steps of a servant, or the tread of a soldier, but the slow, even glide of a body at home.
Fuck, thought Lila as her hand dropped to her side.
“Your Majesty,” she said aloud, turning toward the queen. Lila knew she should bow, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she offered the barest incline of her head, more a nod than an attempt at deference. The queen either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.
“Please,” she said, “call me Nadiya. We are family, after all.”
Family. The word scratched at Lila’s skin like rough wool. As far as she was concerned, family had nothing to do with proximity or blood. Family was a chosen thing. A label earned. Barron had been family. Kell was family. Alucard, and Stross, and Vasry, and Tav, and Rhy. But Nadiya had yet to gain purchase. Lila doubted she ever would.
She raked her gaze over the queen.
Facing each other, they looked like two sides of a warped mirror. They were the same age, and nearly the same height, and ever since Nadiya had hacked away the heavy mane she’d brought to court, their hair fell in the same way, skimming their shoulders. Their coloring was where they differed—the queen’s skin was olive where Lila’s was pale, her hair jet black where Lila’s was dark brown, her eyes the same shade where Lila’s were not, and her body curved in ways Lila’s never had, filling her dress while Lila’s shirt ran uninterrupted from her shoulders to her waist.
But it wasn’t the ways they were different that bothered her.
It was the ways they were alike.
It was the way Nadiya looked at her, as if she were a prize. It was a look Lila herself had leveled at plenty of things. Things she had stolen, or killed for.
Now the queen’s hungry eyes slid past her. To the gallery, and Ren, who was now holding the little white shape aloft, so Lila could see what it was: an egg.
“She took it from the kitchen months ago,” mused Nadiya. “Rescued from a skillet. She’s convinced if she is kind enough, the egg will hatch. I cannot seem to convince Ren there is nothing there to rescue.” She inclined her head. “Children can be marvelous.”
“You could just crack it open,” offered Lila. “I’m surprised it hasn’t spoiled.”
“Oh, it would have,” said the queen. “But once a week, I trade it for a new one while she’s sleeping.” A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. “What harm is there, in hoping?”
“And when the hope runs out?”
“She’s four. I think it can last a little longer.”
Ren laughed, and the queen and Lila both turned toward the sound. Kell was now holding the egg to the light, and tracing a shape along its shell.
“He is a good uncle,” said the queen. “He’ll be a good father.” Lila snorted. Nadiya frowned. “Haven’t you ever wanted a child?”
The question had a strange effect, like a corset cinched around her ribs, but the answer was easy, automatic. “No.”
She half expected Nadiya to tut, to say that one day she would, but the queen only nodded thoughtfully, and said, “I always wanted one. I don’t know why. It wasn’t ego. Some women just want to see their own reflection. I wanted to know what it felt like. To make another person. And then, when she was here, I wanted to see what she would do. Who she would be. Every day, she is different. Every day, she is new.”
“You talk of her like she’s an experiment.”