"Imperial marriages are arranged early," the emperor mused, drawing the papers toward him. "It is never too soon to—"
A shout came from beyond the doors, and then the doors themselves banged open.
A young silver-haired boy stood in the entrance, and then walked straight down the hall and planted himself in front of the Duke.
"Your Grace." There was a tear standing in one eye, and his voice cracked on it. "Are you all right? Are you hurt?"
The Duke looked down at him in surprise, and the boy's face crumpled, and he began to cry.
He was the son of Princess Oilia of the Ivern Kingdom, whose people were famous for their magic, and of the current emperor. He was the sole legitimate heir of the Nhard Empire. His talent with a sword was extraordinary, and it was Duke Adrien himself who taught him. He was a brilliant magician and a brilliant scholar besides, having inherited his mother's gifts entire.
And for all of that, there was exactly one person in the Empire who seemed to disapprove of him, and that person was sitting behind the desk.
The boy pushed his face into the Duke's chest and held on with both fists.
"What happened here?" a voice asked from the doorway.
"Enough." The emperor's tone cut across the hall. "Look at yourself. Is this how the imperial family behaves in front of a guest? Where are your manners?" He scowled down at his son, and his disapproval was not hidden in the slightest.
He has no title, the Duke thought, with his hand on the boy's back. At his age, and still not named crown prince. That alone tells the whole court what His Majesty thinks of him. And the absurdity of it was that there was no one else. This boy was the only person who could inherit.
"What were the servants doing?" the emperor demanded.
"Forgive us, Your Majesty," they said, bowing low. "His Highness insisted on seeing the Duke. We could not stop him."
"You're safe," the boy said into the Duke's coat, shaking with relief. "You're safe, you're really—"
The Duke frowned, confused. "Safe from what?"
Still clinging, the boy turned his face up. "And Daniel? Is Daniel all right?"
The Duke hugged him back, and the boy squeezed him hard enough to hurt.
"They're all fine," he said. "Everyone is fine. What's brought this on? I've never seen you like this."
"Are you going to keep behaving like a petulant child?" the emperor said.
The boy let go and stepped back and bowed. "I apologize, Father. I had a nightmare. That's all it was. A bad dream made me act this way."
The emperor scoffed. "A dream. And you make a scene in my hall over a dream."
The Duke crouched to the boy's level and put a hand on his shoulder. "You dreamed that Daniel and I were hurt, didn't you," he said gently. "Dreams often show the opposite of what happens. You know that."
He looked down at the prince with a steady, reassuring gaze — and something flickered behind his own eyes, a memory of another child crying her heart out in his arms not two days ago.
The boy wiped his face and composed himself with visible effort. "What brings you to the palace, Your Grace?"
"I'm filing adoption papers."
The prince went rigid. "Adoption? Into the Adrien family?"
"Is something wrong with that?"
"No. It's only — it's sudden."
"A child has captured the Duke's heart," the emperor said thoughtfully, tapping the papers. "That's not a thing I expected to see in my lifetime."
An attending noble with purple hair murmured behind his hand about the interesting possibility of a sorceress one day becoming Duchess Adrien.
"Why adopt her?" the prince asked. "You could sponsor her. You've sponsored dozens. Why bring her into the house?"
The Duke considered the question honestly. "Because I want her close," he said. "I want her where I can see her."
Then he smiled fondly. "She's a sweet child. Shy. When the two of you meet, be good to her."
The prince's face fell into shadow.
"As my master wishes," he said at last. "I must obey your request."
And when the Duke turned away, the boy's expression hardened into a cold, resentful glare.
Sunset came down peacefully over the walls of the Adrien estate.
Three blond heads peeked around the edge of a pillar at the far end of the corridor, three pairs of eyes wide.
Joanne stood in the doorway of Rosette's room, looking down at the sleeping girl, and turned and put a finger to her lips.
The three Adrien siblings had stacked themselves into a totem pole against the wall — Daniel at the top, because Daniel had brought snacks and wanted to share them; Isabelle in the middle, muttering that little children slept an unreasonable amount; and Lucas at the bottom, already dozing on his feet.
"Let her sleep the day out," Joanne whispered. "She needs it."
"She does," Daniel agreed.
"Then there's nothing fun to do," Lucas complained.
Inside the room, Rosette stirred.
"Instead of loafing about in a hallway," Isabelle told her brother, "you might try studying."
"I do study."
"You do not."
Rosette's face was flushed, beaded with sweat, and her hands moved on the blanket. She was not resting at all.
Vermin.
A small girl on the floor of a study, and a cruel man's hand, and the floor coming up hard.
And then a blond girl leaning over her, grinning down with sweet malice.
Is this pathetic little thing really supposed to be my older sister?
Rosette curled into a ball under her blankets. Even now. Even after turning back time, I can't get out of the Dallas Marquisate. It follows me in here.
She jolted awake in terror, and one thought went through her head, over and over, in a voice that was not hers.
Why did you do it?
She knew that voice. She had heard it through the bars of a prison cell, in the last hours of her old life, asking her what crime she and her master and Daniel had all been guilty of.
She lay in the dark and strained after it. Someone had come to her cell. Someone had stood there and wept for her, just before she turned back time — she had let herself forget his face because remembering it was unbearable.
The memory cleared, and there he was: a handsome silver-haired young man with tears running down his face.
Crown Prince Joshua Nhard.
She was certain of it now. It was Crown Prince Joshua Nhard who had come down to the cells, and stood on the other side of the iron, and cried.
Say something, he had begged her. They're taking you in the morning. Say something to me. Anything.
And then: What did those two ever do wrong? Why did they have to die?
Rosette lay in her warm bed in the Adrien mansion and remembered that she had not been able to answer him. Not one word.
She admitted it to herself now, shamefully: what she had felt in that moment was kinship. The most powerful young man in the Empire, crying like a helpless child through the bars, and something in her had recognized it and reached toward it.
It was after he left that she made her decision.
It sounds like an excuse, she thought, crying quietly into her pillow. I know how it sounds. But it wasn't entirely my own free will. It never was, not once, from the day the curse was set.
She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and made the promise again, fiercely, the way she had made it at the magic circle.
Wait a little longer. That's all I ask. I'll set every part of it right.
"I'll bring your precious people back to you," she said aloud to the dark. "Whatever it takes."
The vision of the prince standing sorrowfully behind the bars faded out, and what remained was a much smaller memory: her own younger self, looking up at him.
Then her eyes snapped open.