Elana hovered in the hallway outside of her father’s study with a snuffed-out lantern in her hand, waiting for confirmation of what she already suspected: that something was amiss. Her mother had been behaving oddly since noon, distant in a way that had struck Elana as more distracted than cold.

That in and of itself was a surefire sign that things were happening behind Elana’s back that she wasn’t allowed to know about, a cue she’d learned to track like a bloodhound.

She’d also learned that the only way to loop herself in, to glean any insight into her parents’ odd shifts, was to eavesdrop. Because her parents never told her anything—no one did.

Elana had learned to find her own ways around that. She’d had to because ever since the academy had claimed the first of her siblings, her parents and the estate staff alike had retreated into themselves, hiding behind a shroud of secrecy. Eavesdropping was a small price to pay to peek behind the veil.

Elana closed her eyes, trying to focus on the muffled conversation coming through the door.

She could make out only pieces of her parents’ conversation. Was it an argument? That hardly made sense—her parents rarely fought. And she could think of no reason for them to fight, which only confirmed her hypothesis: something was amiss.

The question of what it might be nagged at her until she recognized the sound of her own name.

Her head jerked up, eyes going wide. Her name. Why her name? Had she done something? No, that didn’t make any sense.

She was always so careful not to cross any lines. And her mother had been perfectly fine even through the midday lessons. Midday. Of course—that was when the butler delivered the post. Something must have come. But something about her?

Elana’s knee bounced as she thought. Was there any way for her to get to those letters?

She’d be able to hear when her parents retreated to their adjoined room. She could wait them out and sneak in—wait, no. She stifled a groan. She couldn’t do that, not with the magical wards on her father’s study. He would know instantly if anyone stepped foot inside without him.

That plan was out, and she didn’t have a better one. It wasn’t as if there was anyone in the estate that was on her side. And even if there was, no one could get around her father’s magic.

There would be no getting her hands on those letters. But whatever had come had made her mother’s mood notably more sour—and turned dinner into an even more bleak and uncomfortable affair than usual.

Although, to an outsider, it probably wouldn’t have looked much different. Even on the best of days, the manor was a silent, solemn place.

But the estate hadn’t always felt that way. In her earliest memories, the manor had been a much livelier place, a home brimming with warmth and good cheer. Back then, it had been a place that had never once known despair.

But those days were long gone. Even the memories of them had grown faint, reduced to mere shadows of the moments they’d encapsulated.

Gone were the echoes of children’s laughter and footsteps running down the corridors, of warm banter over the dining table. Gone were the days of having her hair braided by her older sisters, or being roped into the pranks and antics of her brothers.

Death was the unspoken eighth member and constant companion of their family. It had been since the first time Elana dressed in funeral black at six years old—and there hadn’t been a reprieve from a mourning period since.

Of the six siblings she’d grown up with, not one remained. Each, with the exception of the eldest, had lost their lives within two years of entering the Royal Magic Academy. As a result, there was one unspoken rule that every member of the estate followed: The dead were not to be spoken of—and neither was Antoine.

As far as Elana was concerned, he was more than dead, even though he had survived what the others hadn’t. He was the oldest, the firstborn heir, a bonafide prodigy.

And no one was allowed to speak his name. Not her mother, not the staff, not even her father, whose implacable silence on the matter was an ever-fixed thing. Antoine had been not only exiled, but systematically erased from the duchy’s history.

He was a living ghost, a legend whose face had been removed from every family portrait and whose name had been stricken out in every book.

He’d left for the academy so early in her life that Elana had no memories of him. The only proof left that he had ever existed to begin with was a single portrait that lay, eternally face-down, in her mother’s dressing room.

She’d snuck in once, when she was younger, to appease her curiosity—a childish impulse to know what her older brother looked like. But her mother had appeared before she could turn it over and snatched her arm away.

She couldn’t remember what the punishment she’d received was, only that there was one.

(She should have stopped to question why his existence alone provoked such a strong reaction from her parents. It would have been a better use of her time than puzzling over the post. It might have better prepared her for what lay ahead—but she didn’t.

It was the first of many mistakes Elana de Vanquise would make.)

With him and the rest of her siblings gone, all that lingered in the hallways was cold, oppressive silence—which was convenient for eavesdropping.

Elana closed her eyes, leaning as close as she could to the door without making contact. Her father’s wards would react if she did. The magic would make him immediately aware of her presence, and her opportunity would vanish.

She had to make due at a distance, even though all she could make out were the edges of their conversation, fragments that didn’t make any sense.

Just her name, again, and then—

Her mother’s heavily muffled voice trickled through the door. “Coward.”

Elana inhaled sharply, recoiling. The sting in her chest caught her so off guard that she nearly stumbled as she stepped back—no, she caught herself. She couldn’t back away. She could do this. She had to focus.

They were talking about her, or at least her future. She had to know what they were saying.

She held her breath, trying to make out more of their muffled words, but ‘coward’ was still ringing in her ears. If they really thought that—her hands clenched, jaw tightening. She couldn’t get lost in self-pity. She had to focus.

Her parents’ voices grew quieter, lowering to hushed whispers. It sounded like they had moved further away. It had become almost impossible to hear them.

She tried to string the pieces together. Were they talking about her education?

She’d been asking them to modify her lesson plans, to finally add in at least enough combat training to develop some middling self-defense skills. Or any amount, to increase her odds of survival when the inevitable day the academy summoned her came. Because it was a when, not an if.

But ever since her mana affinity had been measured and found lacking as a child, her lessons had revolved around everything but combat: history, court etiquette, geopolitics, military tactics, supply chain economics, and potions. Elana knew twenty different ways to poison a man, but only one way to hold a knife.

And, yes, she was working on a way around that, but—

Her breath caught.

A faint but unmistakable wooden creak in the distance—she knew that sound. Someone had just reached the top of the stairs.

She should have heard their footsteps long before that, so why hadn’t she? They were too close now, shit. They would hear her if she ran.

The glow of an approaching lantern slid across the dark wooden floors, illuminating the far end of the corridor.

Elana backed away from the study doors and hastily shoved herself into a nearby alcove. She took shelter behind a marble bust of some long-dead ancestor whose name she couldn’t be bothered to recall just then. It didn’t matter—it was large enough to hide her.

She heard the quiet rattle and creak of a lantern swaying on its chain.

Her pulse thudded in her ears.

She’d hidden in time, hadn’t she? Surely, she wasn’t about to be caught red-handed, eavesdropping on her parents. There would be no explaining that away. They would look at her like she was something painful to behold again—

Thinking about it was only making her panic more. She had to stop. Elana closed her eyes, focusing instead on trying to isolate how far away the sound was.

Hopefully the lantern-carrier wasn’t coming her way. There were other branching halls. It was likelier for them to head toward the kitchens than come deeper into her parents’ wing of the manor.

Elana held her breath, waiting for the creaking to abate and for the glow of the lantern to fade.

Eventually, it did.

She peered around the lip of the alcove. She couldn’t see anyone or hear any footsteps, either approaching or retreating. She released her breath, her shoulders sagging. She was safe. She’d made it—

A deep, whisper-soft voice spoke over her shoulder, “My lady.”

Elana inhaled sharply, jolting back into the alcove.

A gloved hand clapped itself firmly over her mouth before she could so much as think about screaming. The hand was stained with the scent of fresh grass, oiled leather, and sweat.

“Pardon my intrusion,” the voice murmured, all-too familiar once she’d had another second to process it.

She spun, colliding with a wall of solid muscle. Elana closed her eyes, swallowing a frustrated sound. She should have known it was him.

Even without being able to see his face in the shadows, she recognized the low, familiar bass of his voice. Soren, the one other permanent fixture of the estate, whose presence was as frequent and looming as the shadow of death.

She scoffed, the sound muffled by his glove.

Of course it was him. Her parents had taken the boy in before she was even capable of forming memories.

He was Antoine’s former page, and the squire that her father favored most. She’d watched her father pour all of his resources into Soren’s combat instruction—the exact resources that he staunchly refused to use for her.

He’d done all of that for Soren even though he was no one, even though he’d been taken in from the streets.

He’d somehow managed to move with her so that when she spun, she was the one backed into the recessed alcove.

Elana swatted Soren’s hand away from her face. He was the last person she wanted to be dealing with, especially within earshot of her father’s study. Any commotion would bring both of her parents out into the hallway, creating the perfect opportunity for them to: a) give her those disappointed, frosty glares they always did when she let them down and b) silently compare her to Soren for the thousandth time.

“How are you always here?” she hissed. “Do you have nothing to do but follow me?”

Because he was always there, silent and inevitable as death, constantly getting the drop on her. Especially when she was doing something she wasn’t supposed to—and she hated how easily he did it.