and forged of glass. “And you put us all to shame.”
Ren hesitated. She took it from him, surprised by how heavy it felt in her hand. Lukasz turned away to rummage through one of the hidden cupboards.
“What do you mean?” she asked. She felt like an imposter. This was his sword. It had come to life for him—
“Here,” he said, returning with a belt and scabbard.
“Lukasz, what—?”
He looped it over her shoulders, across her body. He pulled her very close as he buckled it over her black coat. He looked down at her from his great height, and Ren almost pulled him closer.
“What are you doing?” she asked instead. “Don’t you need this—?”
“Ren,” he said. “It’s your sword. In case—you’re the queen, Ren. You’ve gotten us through everything. You should do this. You need to do this.”
He was still smiling, but his voice had an urgent undercurrent. Ren didn’t quite understand. She wasn’t a Wolf-Lord. This was the Golden Dragon—
But when she put a hand over his, Lukasz just stepped back.
“With that sword,” he tried to joke, “you look like a queen.”
He tried to move away, but Ren grabbed his hand.
“I have always looked like a queen,” she said, pulling him closer. She found the buckle on the belt, readjusted it so the sword lay comfortably against her hip. Then added, “I am just not the queen you expected.”
And suddenly, he was so close that if Ren had moved even the slightest bit, their lips would have touched. Ren could feel her own heart taking her away, could feel him giving in. And it was going to happen. There was nothing she could do about it.
“You’re nothing like I expected,” he murmured.
She almost moved forward. But Lukasz twisted away suddenly, eyes trained on the door.
“Stop,” he said. “Someone’s here.”
Jarek
ONE YEAR EARLIER
IT CAME AS NO SURPRISE that the last three brothers received invitations to the Royal Exhibition of the Unnatural. Lukasz figured he had Jarek to thank for that.
Because the thing was, Jarek was good at pretending.
Early on, when there had never been enough food, Jarek had pretended he wasn’t hungry. Whenever they were invited to some fine party or elegant soiree, he pretended to be flattered.
And he also pretended he liked hunting dragons.
Jarek’s pretending made him easygoing and likable. His shyness and kindness made him all things to all people. He was also less threatening, taller than Franciszek but shorter than Lukasz, with a haunted kind of handsomeness that the young ladies of Miasto found romantic. He was, although it baffled him, wildly popular.
The night of the exhibition, the three brothers descended the four hundred steps that led into the belly of the Wieczna Salt Mine. From there, they walked the mineral-crusted passageways and entered the great salt ballrooms. Salt chandeliers hung from the ceilings. Bas-reliefs in salt lined the sparkling gray walls.
And overhead, monsters.
It was, after all, an exhibit.
Dragon skeletons rotated slowly, like obscene mobiles with iridescent silk stretched between the bones of their unfurled wings. Banniks, stuffed with sawdust, were arranged with their arms cranked back, hurling invisible rocks at their enemies. Common things, like psotniki and nocnica, were interspersed among the rarer beasts. Their curator, Professor Damian Biele?, held court beneath them.
The professor had chosen the salt mine especially. Lukasz supposed there was a kind of thrill in admiring demons next to hell.
“Monstrosity is relative,” Lukasz overheard him saying. “For some of these creatures, evil is simply a way of life. Take this strzygoń . . .”
The Unnaturalist gestured to a silver-gray monstrosity revolving slowly overhead. It had been killed in the moment of its birth: the new strzygoń emerging from the torso of its human vessel. The gray bulging eyes stared down at them. Lukasz turned his head to the side for a better view.
The sight took him back to the cellars of Szarawoda, looking at another strzygoń, at another scholar of monsters. . . .
“These creatures are a miracle of survival,” Professor Biele? was saying. “For the survival of their species is based, most unusually, on the consumption of others. . . .”
“Close your mouth,” Lukasz muttered, catching up with Jarek. “You look like a fish.”
Jarek, who had been staring up at the revolving dragons, started and almost dropped his glass.
“Where’s your date gotten to?” asked Lukasz.
In the sallow lighting of the salt mine, Jarek looked even more romantically haggard than usual.
Franciszek approached. They formed an island of black and legend in the center of the chamber.
“Turned out she didn’t want me,” Jarek was answering,