I feel like I’m gliding down the hall after breakfast, trying my best—and probably failing—to keep a smile off my face. My morning spent with Griffin has been the best one I’ve had so far. I let myself imagine what it would be like to wake up to his blue eyes, his charming smile. There are worse ways to start your day, and it certainly beats waking up covered in blood.

As though my good mood summoned him, I see Nico standing outside my doors for the first time since the interrogation session, ready to ruin my day. He’s wearing leather armor from the neck down and has a sword strapped to his waist. I can’t rip my eyes away from it—a real sword. People here wear them so casually, the same way I used to keep my phone in my pocket.

When I finally manage to look up, Nico catches my eyes and lifts a brow.

“Sir,” the guard next to me says, raising his hand in salute.

Nico salutes back. “Good morning, solider. You’re dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.” The guard stalks back the way we came, leaving me alone with Nico.

He looks me up and down and in the light streaming through the windows, I can fully take him in. The eyes that flashed green in the flames of the torches a few nights ago are now bright and searching. His bronzed skin speaks to many hours spent in the sun. Midmorning reveals that his brown hair has streaks of gold in it, and when he opens his mouth to speak, I see two rows of straight, white teeth.

“Are you alright?”

It’s jarring, to hear his voice so soft, all pretense and authority dropped. My gut immediately tells me not to trust him.

“Fine,” I say, trying to shoulder past him.

He steps in front of me. “What did the Princeling want?”

“None of your business,” I say.

He tries to say something else, but what it is, I’ll never know. The words die on his lips as the doors to my chambers are thrown open.

“Your Majesty,” Leela cries. “You’ve returned in one piece.”

“Was I not supposed to?”

Leela shares a look with Nico. My eyes flit between them. Wordlessly, Nico’s mouth tugs up into a smile, showing off a lone dimple. He turns away and coughs into his fist.

“No reason. None at all,” Leela says. Then, “Captain Nico, charmed, as always.”

“Lady Leela,” Nico says, with an air of court authority. “The pleasure is always mine.”

I have no idea what’s going on between the two of them and I don’t know if I want to know. Leela offers her arm to me and I take it, letting her lead me into the rooms.

***

“Your parents will be arriving the morning of the funeral,” Helena says. She has one arm through mine and my other arm is looped through Leela’s. “The letter they sent the planner says they’d hoped to make it earlier, but have an urgent matter to attend to until then.”

“That’s in three days,” I say.

What I don’t say is that that only gives me three days to figure out how on earth I’m going to convince these people that I’m their daughter.

“How do you think my parents took the news?” I ask, hoping to piece together a picture of them through snatches of conversation.

Helena glances at Leela for the briefest of moments, and then fixes her gaze down the hallway.

“I’m sure they were dismayed, Your Majesty,” she says, but her words sound empty.

I want to interrogate her further, but she stops us in front of a series of glass double doors.

“Here we are,” Helena says.

She pushes the doors open to complete and utter chaos. People young and old flit through the room, arms laden with bolts of fabric, baskets full of scraps, and life size mannequins. One person even runs by with something that looks like a spinning wheel that a princess in a fairytale might prick her finger on.

“Your Majesty,” a sharp, heavily accented voice calls. I look around for the source, but can’t place the owner, until a tall woman with grey hair pulled into a tight bun steps out of a side door I hadn’t noticed. She’s wearing a severe, high-necked, floor-length dress in a shade of maroon so deep it looks nearly black.

She towers over me and under her heavy stare, I feel the weight of every mistake I’ve ever made, every scolding I’ve ever gotten, every sigh of disappointment directed my way.

Then she breaks into a smile more dazzling than the midmorning sun filtering in through the windows.

“How are you, my dear?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, just takes my hand and pulls me along with her. “Are you holding up well after the Emperor’s death?” She pauses to survey me and then makes up her mind. “No, you simply can’t be. Murder will do that to a person. Isn’t that scandalous? Murder, of all things.”

She brings me to a stop in front of a three panel floor to ceiling mirror. “Well, nothing a good dress can’t fix. Marta, bring me the black fabric. You know, the one with the trimming,” she calls.

A girl no older than fifteen carries out a bolt of fabric half her size. “Yes, Madame De Vries.” She sets the fabric down with a thud and scurries out of the room.

“Now then,” Madame De Vries says. “Why don’t you take off this dress and we’ll make you fit for a funeral.”

She takes matters into her own hands again and begins unbuttoning the back of my dress. Before I even know what’s happened, I’m left standing in the slip dress and stockings that make up my new undergarments.

Taking this body in, I’m once again struck by how different Messalina is from myself. Even in just a silk slip and long socks, she is every part a queen. She looks like someone fit to have others waiting on her, to have dresses custom made for her and people attuned to her every need. In every sense of the word, Messalina is nothing like me.

“Ah, Madame De Vries,” Helena says. “You’re unmatched in taste and craft, but do bear in mind that it is a funeral.”

Madame De Vries clicks her tongue and meets my eye in the mirror. “A funeral, yes, but a funeral attended by everyone who’s everyone across the eight realms. A queen must mourn, but she must do it impeccably, yes?”

Helena sighs, like this is a conversation they have every week. But I can hardly keep my knees from buckling. It hadn’t occurred to me that, obviously, hundreds of people would show up to mourn an Emperor, hundreds of people that Messalina knows, and who know her.

As Madame De Vries drapes fabric over my shoulders, I can’t shake the feeling that she’s fitting me in my death shroud.