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...regrets weren’t worth the memories they lingered in.

When exactly did I become the heroine in some YA romance? The new girl swooning over the hottest, most unattainable boy in school?
Gross. And so not happening.

“Have you ever wanted something so much that you were afraid to take it?�
“Yes.� He nods.
“Like it’s right there, waiting for you to just reach out and grab it, but you’re so terrified of what will happen when you lose it that you never make the reach?�
“Yes,� he says again, his voice low and deep and comforting in a way that burrows inside me.
I tilt my head up until our eyes meet, and then I whisper, “What did you do?�
For long seconds, he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t do anything. He just stares back at me with a look in his eyes as scarred and broken as the rest of him. And says, “I decided to take it anyway.�

It’s pretty obvious Jaxon is the villain of his own story. I just wish I knew why.

Jaxon, on the other hand� If he lies to me, you’d better believe I’m going to stake him through his fangy black heart. And yes, I know that makes no sense. I just don’t happen to care at this exact moment.

“Anyway, Harry Potter is tainted forever, and I’m not getting a cat.�
“W³ó²â?â€�
“Because it will die in thirteen to seventeen years, based on recent statistical data, and shatter my heart in thirteen to seventeen pieces.�
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.�

I frown. He sounds very . . . in charge. Self-assured. Not that he usually doesn’t, but it’s having a new . . . effect on me. Oh my God. Am I a damsel in distress?

FUN FACT ABOUT me: I am a fairly mellow person, but I happen to have a very violent fantasy life.
Maybe it’s an overactive amygdala. Maybe it’s too much estrogen. Maybe it’s the lack of parental role models in my formative years. I honestly don’t know what the cause is, but the fact remains: I sometimes daydream about murdering people.
By “sometimes,� I mean often.
And by “people,� I mean Levi Ward.

guess this is it—being in love. Truly in love. Lots and lots of horrible, wondrous, violent emotions. It doesn’t suit me.

Ithicana would pay for its crimes against her people, and by the time she was through with its king, he’d do more than bend.
He’d bleed.

Ithicana would pay for its crimes against her people, and by the time she was through with its king, he’d do more than bend.
He’d bleed.

Ithicana needed a queen who was a warrior. A woman who’d fight to the death for her people. A woman who was cunning and ruthless, not because she wanted to be, but because her country needed her to be. A woman who’d challenge him every day for the rest of his life. A woman Ithicana would respect.
And there was one thing he was certain: Lara Veliant was not that woman.

Still, she was aware enough to hear him, his voice hoarse as he said, “Since the moment I set eyes on you in Southwatch, there’s been no one but you. Even if I’m a goddamned fool for it, there will never be anyone but you.�

You are a fool, she thought as darkness took her. And that made two of them.

They did what they needed to survive, and with every piece of information she stored away about them, her guilt swelled, because she knew Ithicana wouldn’t survive her.

Many say, better to die, until the time comes to actually do it, Morozko had told he

Many say, better to die, until the time comes to actually do it, Morozko had told her once. He was right.

“I do not like him.�
“I fear,� said Sergei, “that he does not care in the slightest.�

�...that is the only way you can play for everything, when you do not fear to lose.�

Raising her head, she snapped at him, “Did you bring me here to watch me bleed to death? You are going to be disappointed. I am getting used to spiting people by surviving.�

“I knew you couldn’t do without me!� cried Ded Grib, triumphantly. “Even if now you have allies that are bigger.� He gave the Bear a very hard look.
“This is going to be a terrible war,� the Bear interjected. “What damage do you expect to do with a mushroom?�

None of the tales spoke of both wanting and resentment, of grand gestures and terrible mistakes.

The mare stood quietly, chewing at her hay. Morozko was staring into the fire and did not turn his head when she rose. Vasya thought of the long featureless years of his life, wondered how many nights he sat alone by a fire, or if he wandered the wild instead and made his dwelling seem to have a roof and walls and a fire only to please her.

But as though her words were a summoning, a door among the firs—a door she hadn’t seen—opened with the crack of breaking ice. A swath of firelight bloodied the virgin snow. Now, quite plainly, a house stood in this fir-grove. Long, curling eaves capped its wooden walls, and in the snow-torn firelight, the house seemed to lie breathing, crouched in the thicket.

You know those daydreams you have for years . . . the ones you know won’t come true, but they get you through the day?

You know those daydreams you have for years . . . the ones you know won’t come true, but they get you through the day?

“I’m sorry, Jules.� His words are softer, pleading in a way that strikes a different kind of fear into me than (view spoiler)[Caro (hide spoiler)]

“I’m sorry, Jules.� His words are softer, pleading in a way that strikes a different kind of fear into me than (view spoiler)[Caro (hide spoiler)] ever has. And what’s most frightening—I believe him. “I just can’t let you—can’t stand the thought—�
Please don’t finish, I think, because I already know what he wants to say. I can’t stand the thought of losing you.

Rhen puts his hands on my ar

Rhen puts his hands on my arms and leans in. When he speaks, his voice is very low, very quiet, just for me. “My father is dead, my lady. My whole family is dead.� He pulls back, meeting my gaze, but his voice doesn’t change. “That monster killed them all.�

This feels like the cruelest season of all, to present me with a girl with the fierceness to stand at my side—yet with a home and family she needs to return to so badly.

I give her a nod and turn for the door.
“Rhen,� she calls after me.
I pause in the doorway and face her.
“I’m not going to fall in love with you,� she says. Her words are not a surprise.
I sigh. “You won’t be the first.�

Rhen has made it to his feet. “You cannot harm her,� he says. “You swore.�
“I swore not to kill them,� Lilith says. “I swore not to interfere with your attempts at courtship.� She steps closer to me. “That,� she says, “is all I swore.�

I stay close to Rhen and keep my voice low. “Do people always do everything you want?
“Not always.� He turns to look at me, his expression inscrutable. �Clearly.�

A sound chokes out of my throat. I want to weep for an entirely new reason. The burning pain has reached my head, and my eyes begin to cloud with stars.
“You are responsible,� she says, her terrible voice fading away. “You, Rhen. You alone will destroy them all.�

I step closer, until her skirts brush my legs, and I rest a hand on her waist. “I am inviting you to dance, not dragging you behind a horse.� I sigh dramatically. “Must you look so tortured?�

A soldier with orders to answer to. Fitting. That’s who he thinks he is. Just another person under his father’s command, obeying the will of s

A soldier with orders to answer to. Fitting. That’s who he thinks he is. Just another person under his father’s command, obeying the will of someone dead. Again we lock eyes, and something in both of us burns.
Despite everything, his presence feels like safety. No matter what, he chases away any fear I have for myself.
Of course, that only leaves fear for the people I love.
For Farley, for my family.
And still, always, for him.

I feel cut in two, torn in different directions. An obvious question hangs in my mind. Another choice that I might need to make. His life or our victory? I don’t know which side I might choose, if I ever have to. Which side I might betray. The knife of that knowledge cuts deep, and I bleed where no one else can see.

I don’t care about Iris, still out in the harbor, making her escape. I can only look at him, even though I never want to see him like this. Each passing second is a ruin. I’ve been shot; I’ve been stabbed; I’ve been hollowed out. This is a thousand times worse.

I wonder which second put this in motion. Which choice. Was it Elara, looking into my head for an opportunity to strike the Scarlet Guard? Was it Evangeline, making me fall into the arena of Queenstrial? Was it Cal, his hand closing on mine when I was just a Red thief? Or Kilorn, his master dead, his fate decided, the doom of conscription looming before him?

Constructions of their parents. Cal is built from his father’s dreams, and Maven from his mother’s nightmares.

Making us wait isn’t just rude; it’s politically stupid. And a waste of my own precious time.
He’s probably off arguing with Mare again, pretending not to look at her lips while he does it. The prince is terribly predictable, and I hope the pair of them will boil over into some not-so-secret secret relationship once more. Will I be expected to guard the door?I sneer to myself.

Don’t think about him.
I chant it to myself as I prepare for bed, repeating the words over and over.
Cal’s face seems burned against my eyelids, while Maven haunts even my fleeting, distant dreams. Those stupid boys. They never leave me alone.

“I would come for you,� he said, and when he saw the wary look she shot him, he said it again. “I would come for you. And if I coul

“I would come for you,� he said, and when he saw the wary look she shot him, he said it again. “I would come for you. And if I couldn’t walk, I’d crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we’d fight our way out together—knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that’s what we do. We never stop fighting."

“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch, Brekker. You have to be the craziest bastard I ever met.�
“I’ll take that as a compliment.�

Kaz had tapped his crow’s head cane on the flagstones of the tomb floor. “Do you know what Van Eck’s problem is?�
“No honor?� said Matthias.
“Rotten parenting skills?� said Nina.
“Receding hairline?� offered Jesper.
“No,� said Kaz. “Too much to lose. And he gave us a map to what to steal first.�

Jesper tapped his fingers restlessly on his thighs. “Has anyone noticed this whole city is looking for us, mad at us, or wants to kill us?� “So?� said Kaz.
"Well, usually it’s just half the city.�

Kaz had rescued her from that hopelessness, and their lives had been a series of rescues ever since, a string of debts that they never tallied as they saved each other again and again. Lying in the dark, she realized that for all her doubts, she’d believed he would rescue her once more, that he would put aside his greed and his demons and come for her. Now she ·É²¹²õ²Ô’t so sure.

“If you don’t care about money, Nina dear, call it by its other names.�
“Kruge? Scrub? Kaz’s one true love?�
“Freedom, security, retribution.�
“You can’t put a price on those things.�
“No? I bet Jesper can. It’s the price of the lien on his father’s farm.� The sharpshooter looked at the toes of his boots. “What about you, Wylan? Can you put a price on the chance to walk away from Ketterdam and live your own life? And Nina, I suspect you and your Fjerdan may want something more to subsist on than patriotism and longing glances. Inej might have a number in mind too. It’s the price of a future, and it’s Van Eck’s turn to pay.�

Around Pekka, he lost the shape of who he was—no, he lost the shape of who he’d fought to become. He ·É²¹²õ²Ô’t Dirtyhands or Kaz Brekker or even the toughest lieutenant in the Dregs. He was just a boy fueled by a white flame of rage, one that threatened to burn the pretense of the hard-won civility he maintained to ash.

“My mother is Ketterdam. She birthed me in the harbor. And my father is profit. I honor him daily. Be back by nightfall or don’t come back at all. Either of you. I need crew, not sentimental nubs.�

He reached out and took Nina’s hand. Wylan suddenly felt he was intruding on something private. “I am grateful you’re alive,� he said. “I am grateful you’re beside me. I am grateful that you’re eating.�
She rested her head on his shoulder. “You’re better than waffles, Matthias Helvar.�
A small smile curled the Fjerdan’s lips. “Let’s not say things we don’t mean, my love.�

His eyes scanned her face as they always had, closely, hungrily, snatching at the details of her like the thief he was—the even set of her dark brows, the rich brown of her eyes, the upward tilt of her lips. He didn’t deserve peace and he didn’t deserve forgiveness, but if he was going to die today, maybe the one thing he’d earned was the memory of her—brighter than anything he would ever have a right to—to take with him to the other side.

The silence between them was dark water. He could not cross it. He couldn’t walk the line between the decency she deserved and the violence this path demanded. If he tried, it might get them both killed. He could only be who he truly was—a boy who had no comfort to offer. So he would give her what he could. “I’m going to open Van Eck up,� he said quietly. “I’m going to give him a wound that can’t be sewn shut, that he’ll never recover from. The kind that can’t be healed.�
“The kind you endured?�
“Yes.� It was a promise. It was an admission.

Inej thought of Kaz’s pale trickster hands, the shiny rope of scar tissue that ran atop his right knuckle. Van Eck could break every finger and both of Kaz’s legs and he’d never say a word, but if his men stripped away Kaz’s gloves? Inej still didn’t understand why he needed them or why he’d fainted in the prison wagon on the way into the Ice Court, but she knew Kaz couldn’t bear the touch of skin on skin. How much of this weakness could he hide? How quickly would Van Eck located his vulnerability, exploit it? How long until Kaz came undone? She couldn’t bear it. She was glad she didn’t know where Kuwei was. She would break before Kaz did.

It’s almost comical. Every step I take explodes in my face. I tried to save Kilorn from conscription and maimed my sister instead. I became a maid to help my family and within hours became a prisoner. I believed Maven’s words and Maven’s false heart. I trusted Cal to choose me. I raided a prison to free people and ended up clutching Shade’s corpse. I sacrificed myself to save the people I love. I gave Maven a weapon. And now, try as I might to thwart his reign from the inside, I think I’ve done something much worse.

The smell of smoke gets stronger as I push on. Hope flares. Where there’s smoke, there’s a fire prince.

Nights spent curled against Cal. Forcing Cameron to join our cause. Stolen moments rereading Maven’s sickening notes. Memories of who I thought the forgotten prince was. My cowardice. My nightmares. My mistakes. Every selfish step I took that led me here.
Look what you did. Look what you did. Look what you did.

Even now, when I am painfully his, he won’t let go. I would prefer death to this cage, to the twisted obsession of a mad boy king.

I wonder if he has nightmares of the assassination attempt. Nightmares of his mother, dead by my hand. His father, dead by his action. His brother, in exile but a constant threat. Funny, Maven called himself Cal’s shadow, but Cal is the shadow now, haunting every corner of Maven’s fragile kingdom.

“If your heart’s not in this, you’re going to get a lot of people killed.�
He whirls, almost knocking me on my ass with the speed and force of his movement. I have seen his fire firsthand, but never so strongly as the flame blazing in his eyes.
“Cameron, my heart is quite literally in this,� he hisses through gritted teeth.

“Then what do you want?� When Kilorn asked me that same question, it gave me focus, purpose, a clear path in darkness. “What do you want, Cal?�
He answers quickly, eyes blazing. “You.� His fingers tighten on mine, hot but steady in temperature. He’s holding himself back as much as he can. “I am in love with you, and I want you more than anything else in the world.�