He was so much taller now than when she had last seen him. Anzi’s stomach lurched for the hundredth time since she had come to the Tower, but this one was the final one, the real one. She was here, looking Oza in the eye and coming face to face with the boy she had left to fend for himself in a world she had known would be too cruel to him. And yet he looked healthy, or as healthy as he could ever be with his frailty. Still as skinny as she remembered, though. He positively swam in his robe. “You’re not wearing initiate’s garb anymore,” she said, partly because she was proud of him but mostly because she didn’t know what else to say. “Congratulations.” He raised one shoulder and made a twitching gesture with his opposite hand, but made not a sound. He blinked, long lashes somehow making his eyes look even darker than they were. Did she look like that, she wondered. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked at herself, and fringers didn’t often pause to examine each other’s ap

Anzi couldn’t believe the one time she wanted to see Bastien, she couldn’t. Did he know? Did he know about the possibility of surviving wild dragons yet? It would send him into a raving-mad, delirious fit of ecstasy, but she had to ask him how it could even be possible. He had been there during the Purge, hadn’t he? Despite his looks and his immature, irritating personality, he was an old, old man who could shed more light on the subject than nearly anyone else in the entire Empire. And yet tonight she couldn’t go to see him. No egg-searching, not when she had to accompany Kai all night and entertain him. Entertain. Had the Emperor meant it? Had Kai really told him he intended to couple with her tonight? Maybe he had changed his mind after everything that happened during their afternoon together; he hadn’t told her a thing about it. But wait, he had dragged her to his room and put her in his bed this morning, had even slept beside—around her—for hours. Maybe that was supposed to be th

She wasn’t mistaken. This was Noemi, the woman who had slapped Violetta that day in the market district. Her black hair was done up in elegant style with delicate silver links decorating her tresses, but there was no mistaking the poison-green eyes and the beauty mark by her mouth, nor the sour, sharp expression creeping into her gaze. Evening darkness had fallen, but the torch light was plenty enough to see by. Anzi knew. This was her. And for some reason, she had the emerald brooch in her hair that Violetta had bought for her and held onto. Anzi could believe that young harem girls were forced to lend pretty baubles over to their senior sisters on demand, but something was wrong. Not only was Letti nowhere to be seen, but she had disappeared from the harem quarters altogether. After another fight—or more abuse, rather—had she run off somewhere so no one could find her? If Noemi had slapped her again and left another mark, Letti would hardly show herse

When it happened, there was no warning. “You’re leaving?” Anzi demanded. “Now? But you never said—” Kai’s hand rose to cradle the side of her face, and for once, she didn’t shoot him a glare or make a single complaint to keep up appearances. She was too stunned to remember to, as he stood there with a small entourage of similarly dressed men standing behind him, all of them waiting in silence. No, two of them were women, now that she looked more closely into the darkness, all various shades of bronzed skin with their heads and shoulders wrapped in the style of the desert nomads. Bodyguards? They had weapons at their hips and slung on their backs. She had never seen them before tonight. Where had they been all this time? When her narrowed eyes continued to dart around at his companions’ silhouettes over his shoulder, he turned her face back to him with a gentle nudge. He only stared at her, nothing else, and for a mo

Bastien had no authority over her. He was neither an officer nor did he hold some bloated rank in the Emperor’s court, and his only purpose here was to acquire dragons. An old man with a young face who fancied himself an innovator, a laughing jester who thought himself so high above everyone else just because he had been gifted with immortality obtained from dragons. And where was his dragon, anyway? What noble creature was so unlucky to be bonded to a man like Bastien? She ached for whoever it was, felt their pain as real and sharp as if they were shackled and bound before her very eyes.  To all the burning, dark hells with him. He might have gotten away with tormenting innumerable others, but he would not lay a hand on the ones she was responsible for. Not on her life. When he reached over to stop her from opening the egg, she shot up from her seat and lashed out, hard and fast. But he