entire country of malfettos. Teren smiles at the thought. Tonight, Giulietta will cry out for her guards and tell them the king has stopped breathing beside her. They will pronounce the king dead of natural causes, of excessive wine or of heart attack. And tonight, Teren will begin a true purge of the city’s malfettos.
He gathers his strength. Then he slams the mallet down on the knife’s handle. The knife strikes true. The body goes rigid, twitching. Then, gradually, the movements fade.
The king is dead. Long live the queen.
To love is to be afraid. You are frightened, deathly terrified, that something will happen to those you love. Think of the possibilities. Does your heart clench with each thought? That, my friend, is love. And love enslaves us all, for you cannot have love without fear.
—A Private Thesis on the Romancing of Three Kings,
by Baroness Sammarco
Adelina Amouteru
I haven’t been out in Estenzia often enough to know, but I would have guessed that at such a late hour, the city would be quieter. No such luck tonight. The streets are teeming with Inquisition guards. In fact, I can’t turn a single corner without seeing a patrol making its way down the street. Their presence forces me to slow down. Something has happened. What is going on?
I pass through the shadows, my silver mask tucked neatly under my arm. I cloak myself in an illusion of invisibility, but the act exhausts me quickly, allowing me to do it only for a few moments at a time. I pause frequently in dark alleys to gather my strength. Invisibility is hard, as hard as disguising myself as another person. With each step, my surroundings change, and I have to shift my illusion to change with it. If I don’t shift quickly or accurately enough, I look like a ripple moving through air. The consequence of invisibility, therefore, is constant concentration, to the point where I can barely remember what my real self looks like. At least it’s nighttime. A more forgiving hour.
I hide again as more Inquisition patrols hurry past. Somewhere distant in the night, a few shouts go up. I listen intently. At first, I can’t make out what they’re saying. Then, moments later, the words become clear.
“The king is dead!”
The distant cry freezes me in place. The king . . . is dead?
A moment later, another voice joins in, repeating the phrase. Then another. Among them, I hear another phrase. Long live the queen!
The king is dead. Long live the queen. I steady myself against the wall. Did the Daggers make their move tonight? No, they wouldn’t have. They didn’t plan for it. The king had died before they could get to him.
What happened?
Teren, a whisper in my head suggests. But that doesn’t seem right. Why would he want the king dead?
Without risking a gondola ride, it takes me a full hour before I can even sight the Inquisition Axis’s tower looming in the distance. Beyond it lies the palace—and if I’m not mistaken, the clusters of Inquisitors seem to be heading in that general direction.
By the time I’m in the same square as the tower, a cold sheen of sweat has broken out on my brow. I stop in the shadows of a nearby shop, then let down my invisibility illusion, remove my mask for a moment, and take a deep breath. This is easily the longest I’ve ever held an illusion in place, and the result is a wave of dizziness that leaves me swaying in place. When I was nine, I went into my father’s study and ripped apart a letter he had been writing to a local doctor, asking advice on medicines to subdue my temper. My father found out what I’d done, of course. He told Violetta to lock me in my bedchamber for three days without food or water. When Violetta found me nearly unconscious at the end of the second day, she begged him to release me. He did. Then he smiled and asked me if I’d enjoyed the rush of thirst and hunger. If it had woken anything in me.
The dizziness I felt back then, leaning against my locked door and shouting myself hoarse for my sister to release me, is not unlike how I feel now. The memory gives me some strength, though. After a few minutes, I swallow and straighten myself. My gaze focuses on the tower.
A short walkway leads from the main square up to the tower’s looming doors, and Inquisitors line