[This is the rest of the chapter that was stubbed due to the character limit.]

He lets out a breath, his fingers curling around the linen pages in his hand for a moment, crumpling them slightly as he seemingly fights to control what might otherwise be a mental breakdown. “I suppose I will look into that,” he says stiffly. “You try to get a meeting with Ade Viridia through Leon. Do whatever it takes. Ask Peter about the dragon. We will eventually need a good reason to meet with Paulo as well. Perhaps he can be convinced to attend the summer solstice festival.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll love dancing around the maypole.”

A small laugh stutters from Martin’s lips, surprising us both. The smallest bit of tension leaves his body, then returns tenfold as he notices my open-mouthed amazement.

“You liked that, huh?” I say, my lips curving into an uncontrolled grin.

“No,” he coughs, hiding the bottom half of his face with his hand. “You are extremely unfunny.”

“Are you hiding a smile right now?” I bounce over and punch his arm lightly, earning me an annoyed scowl.

“Enjoy this moment of levity now because we have work to do.”

“C’mon, man. I just spent literal days cosplaying as a JD candidate. At least admit you laughed.”

Yeah. Okay. It’s childish. I’m childish. I don’t want to play with Leon’s heart. I don’t want to marry Peter. I want a little win. A break. More “moments of levity.” I want to make Martin laugh. For some reason, that sounds like the best thing in the world right now.

He looks at me. His tired eyes have this way of making me feel transparent, easily read, but I don’t mind being seen by him. He can see through me all he likes. “Fine. I laughed,” he sighs. “Now . . . fuck off.” With the smallest of smiles on his face, he teleports away before I can have the last word, leaving me with my jaw slightly unhinged and a stupid, happy grin on my face. Instant gratification.

The truth is: it’s been a hard few days. I felt like I was studying for a test, except instead of a good grade, it was the fate of real people’s lives that hung in the balance.

(Real people. I guess that’s how I see the people of Alvione now. It’s hard not to, when you see them every day and get to know them.)

While awake, I’d texted Trix a bit, but we hadn’t met up again. I don’t know why I’m nervous about it now—we already banged, so like, what’s the big deal? But for some reason, I just didn’t have it in me to invite her over again, and she didn’t push things by asking.

I’d also been following the Reddit threads on Alys Stone, trying to get any new tea, should it arise. But alas, the world has been entirely tea-less; nobody knows who the fuck that lady actually is. At the very least, the Redditors say they’ve ruled out Wyoming. I guess it’s the state with the smallest population, so it was the easiest one to clear. Did anyone actually think she disappeared in Wyoming, though?

Besides working, the only other “fun” thing I’ve been up to is applying to marketing jobs. I feel really great and confident about it too, seeing as every one I’ve applied to has basically called me an unqualified idiot in the job description alone. And don’t even get me started on the classic catch-22 of entry level jobs asking for five-plus years of experience while simultaneously offering impressively low pay and benefits summarized as “free coffee and snacks.”

At this rate, maybe I’m better off getting burned to death in Alvione.

I leave my room. Eliana’s room. Eliana’s and my room. And I walk down the hall. Time to find one of my boys. Maybe Leon will be in the library.

With very little certainty of where I’m going, I head toward where I vaguely remember the library being. A few servants scurry in the opposite direction—no Miri, so no one I recognize. After walking down some dead ends and awkwardly spinning around on my heel, by some miracle, I find the library. I head in and check between the shelves. Per usual, no one’s here. And that includes Leon. The place is deserted.

Well, that’s a bust. I see a flicker of movement outside the window, and my curiosity gets the best of me. I step up to the glass and peer out at the garden below.

The first thing I see is fire. Fire, blazing along the back bushes. A controlled burn? Then I hear the screams and something unrecognizable—a rumble as low as thunder. Before I can so much as stumble away from the window, I hear the roar of a raging conflagration and feel a scorching heat that grows and grows until it explodes around me, the force of it throwing me to the floor. Something smashes the window—the heat? An explosion?—and I instinctively cover my face as crumbling glass rains down on me like hail. My hair sizzles and pops, my lungs, my tongue, my mouth scream with pain like I’ve never felt before as I try to breathe, and the last thing I see when I squint through the flickers of blazing light, out the shattered window, is the giant eye of a dragon.