Heavy curtains were drawn over the windows. Only a weak glow of sunlight rimmed their edges. It was enough for me to see the fuzzy contours of the room—empty of furniture, the great chandeliers wrapped in cloth to keep away the dust, the throne on the dais abandoned, everything a haunting echo of its grandeur on Morva’s Eve.
Anton pulled me flush to the wall with the double doors so we weren’t in plain sight should someone enter. His gaze fell briefly to my sapphire necklace. I touched it self-consciously. It felt like iron fetters clamped around my throat. He shook his head, paced back a moment, then cursed, throwing his gloves on the floor. My hand moved to undo the clasp, when I froze at his outburst. “Feliks is a bloodthirsty fool! He’ll ruin everything we’ve worked for.”
I let go of the necklace and pictured the man I’d seen only twice. I’d always felt unsettled by him, but I’d attributed it to his shockingly blue eyes or his mysterious involvement with the prince—the letter about Morva’s Eve that Anton had discreetly given him, or the way Feliks had exited the ballroom first when the bell tolled twelve times. “What has he done?”
Beside us, one of the doors opened. I gasped and receded against the wall.
“Hello?” a man asked quietly. In the dim light, I made out his generous mop of hair.
“Behind you, Nicolai,” Anton said.
The man whirled around. He was, indeed, Count Rostav. He turned a distrusting gaze on me. “What is she doing here?”
“Sonya is a part of this now. You know that.”
“The emperor is looking for her.” Nicolai rubbed a hand over his face in frustration. “By now he must also be eager for my return. I had to leave a council meeting to come here,” he added, making it sound like the ultimate cause for offense. “I drummed up some excuse about urgent business.” He laughed weakly. “I’m sure the emperor wondered what could be more important than convening with him.”
Anton frowned. “Why did he request you a second time in council?”
“His damned insistence that I lend my expertise in plotting the Shengli invasion.” Nicolai threw up his hands. “I don’t know the first thing about battle strategy! My father was the soldier, not I.” As he talked faster, my nerves jangled and a strange sense of foreboding scuttled up my spine. “It leads me to wonder if the emperor is keeping me close because he’s suspicious.”
“Valko is suspicious of everyone.” Anton shrugged, as if that were the least of our concerns. “Why not use his reliance on you to our advantage? If the revolt fails, you have a better chance than his councilors or I do to persuade him to postpone his attack. That will buy us more time should we need to regroup.”
Nicolai laughed again, this time with despair. “Persuade him? How can he be persuaded in anything?”
There I could sympathize with him.
“You’re speaking as if we’re doomed to fail,” Nicolai went on. “Are we?” When the prince didn’t answer fast enough, the count raked a hand through his hair and cast his gaze about the room. “Why are we meeting here—under the emperor’s very nose, of all places?” He sighed. “Please tell me this is necessary.”
“I wouldn’t endanger you otherwise,” Anton said. “You will need to call up your courage, Nicolai. Our situation has become dire.”
“Become dire? Isn’t it already? Tosya in prison and Yuri with a bounty on his head. I’m next, I know I am.”
Anton’s jaw contracted. His patience was unraveling. Between his irritation and Nicolai’s escalating panic, I wanted to crawl out of my skin. “We are all in danger,” I snapped. “We all have something to lose.”
The count scoffed at me. “You are an Auraseer of the empire—and, I’m told, an orphan. You have nothing to lose but your own life.”
I recoiled at his words. He didn’t know anything about me. I’d already lost Pia. I was responsible for the fates of Dasha and Tola. And Anton . . . My throat tightened at the thought of what losing him might do to me.
“Take a care with your tongue!” Anton lashed out at Nicolai. My knees buckled at his outburst. “This isn’t a twisted contest of martyrs.”
“I have a wife and a child!” the count retaliated. His flood of emotions made my nose sting.
My mind flashed back to the cottage where the prince and I had stopped on our journey to Torchev. Past the cottage door, I’d seen two pairs of hands. One, amethyst-ringed, belonged to Nicolai, who’d passed Anton the letter. The other was smaller, a woman’s, and weathered from work. I’d known then the two of them didn’t belong to the same class. Had that woman been Nicolai’s wife?
“Our marriage is secret,” the count said, his eyes turning to me, as if he wished me to understand why he felt so desperate. “We live apart. My family . . . the nobles . . . they would never accept her. I thought this revolution would bring me a chance at that—at helping everyone see one another in a similar regard.”