Theron’s eyes narrowed.

"Perhaps what?"

Kael looked as though he immediately regretted having a mouth at all. He wet his lips and looked away for half a second before forcing the words out.

"Perhaps the King was looking for another mistress," he said awkwardly, "and that was why it was kept secret."

For one vivid second, Theron wanted to throw something.

At Kael.

At the wall.

At the entire ridiculous world.

Instead, he froze.

His heart gave one hard, painful beat.

His father.

The Arcanum.

The girls’ dormitory.

The strange gap in his memory.

And Aveline.

Theron’s hands tightened just beneath the water. The surface rippled outward in small, restless circles.

Did his father find her?

The thought landed so suddenly that his chest felt too tight for breath. He had not expected to care so much, and yet the possibility struck with a force he could not ignore.

If the King had gone to the Arcanum, if he had found whatever he was looking for there, if the girl who had somehow become the center of so many strange disturbances had crossed his path...

Theron’s jaw clenched.

He did not know whether he was angry, afraid, or both.

But he knew one thing with painful clarity.

If his father had found her, then whatever was happening around her had just become far more dangerous than he had already feared.

"Go find her name," Theron said, leaning forward slightly in the bath as though the answer itself might rise from the water if he pressed close enough.

If his father had found her, and if he had already succeeded in erasing her memories too, then what would remain of any of this? What would become of the strange pull that had followed him through every waking hour, every dream, every bewildering moment since she had appeared in his life?

He needed to know everything about her before his father acted again, if he had not already done so. He needed something solid to hold on to before the ground shifted any further beneath him.

Kael hesitated. "Sire, her name is Ava—"

"That is not her real name."

The interruption came sharp and immediate, not loud, but certain enough to stop Kael in place.

Theron’s gaze fixed on him.

"Pretend you are someone else," he said, his voice lower now, controlled in the way that meant it was only barely controlled at all. "Find out the truth about her from her own mouth."

He did not trust the simple version of her name. He could not bring himself to look into those bright, beautiful eyes and tell her he had forgotten her, not when every instinct in him screamed that forgetting her had been wrong.

So if he could not confront the truth directly, then he would find it another way.

Kael looked even more confused now. He was a spy, yes. He could gather information. He could vanish into shadows and return with secrets.

But to approach a girl under false pretenses and coax her into speaking about herself? That felt oddly personal, too human for the sort of work he was used to. Surely it would be easier for the prince to simply read her memories, if he suspected she had seen or known something important.

But the command had been given.

So Kael bowed his head. "As you wish, Your Highness."

-----

Meanwhile, Aveline had returned to her room after sending Aelion away. She stretched her arms above her head with a tired sigh, then spent a while talking with Lydia, who had no shortage of opinions about cotton, the festival, the rebels, the nobles, and every other topic that could possibly become gossip if left unattended.

Lydia gossiped with such enthusiasm that it was almost impossible not to be drawn in, and Aveline, despite herself, found it strangely comforting. It felt ordinary in a way the rest of the day had not. Grounded. Almost peaceful.

After Lydia left for her own room, Aveline played with Hamilton for a while.

He had shrunk back to his garden-lizard size, which made him look both adorable and deeply offended by the fact that he was once again small. He curled up on her lap with a satisfied little sound after a few minutes, and Aveline absentmindedly stroked his back until he drifted into sleep.

She herself was growing tired too, but she wanted a bath first. The day had left too much on her skin, too much in her thoughts, and she needed the water before she could settle properly.

She had just begun to strip when she felt it.

A presence.

Familiar, quiet, tucked into the corner of the room like a shadow pretending not to breathe.

Aveline stopped at once.

Her eyes moved toward the darkened corner, and without hesitation she reached for a vase nearby. She lifted it, plucked the flowers from it with one quick motion, and flung the water directly toward the shadows.

The room erupted with the splash.

"What are you doing sneaking around here, Shadow Spider?" she asked, her voice sharp with irritation. "You disappeared for days and now you are here as though nothing has changed?"

Kael’s heart slammed painfully.

For one thing, he had been certain he would not be found. For another, he had not expected to be greeted by a furious girl armed with a vase and a deeply personal insult. Why spiders? Why was she calling him that? It made no sense at all, which was somehow even more disorienting.

He had not meant to step out.

He had not even realized when he had left the shadows.

And yet there he was, fully exposed, with a very angry woman in front of him and no graceful explanation available. He straightened automatically, though it did nothing to help his dignity.

"Where is your prince?" Aveline demanded.

Kael drew himself up, insulted despite his shock. "How dare you—"

Before he could finish, she swung the vase and slammed it cleanly against his shoulder.

The blow made him recoil.

"Go get him, Kael," she snapped, her tone final and unimpressed. "I am not talking to you."

Kael stared at her in absolute disbelief.

Then, because he had no immediate answer and no desire to be hit again, he vanished into the shadows with what little composure he had left.

A moment later, he appeared in front of Theron.

The prince was still in the bath, wet and half-turning at the sound of sudden movement, his expression dark with annoyance and confusion in equal measure.

Kael, for his part, looked like a man who had just lost an argument with a woman who had discovered his name faster than he could disappear.

"She knows my name," Kael said, visibly shaken. "My name, Your Highness."

Theron let him vent in silence, though the more Kael spoke, the more obvious it became that this was a mistake. A clever spy, perhaps. But not the right sort of man for this task. He had the nerves for stealth, not the patience for subtle emotional warfare.

Theron finally dismissed him with a brief nod.

Kael left looking deeply offended, though whether by Aveline, the assignment, or his own wounded pride, Theron could not have said.

Alone again, Theron sat in the bath for a moment longer, the water cooling against his skin as he frowned at the ceiling.

He could not simply go to her room again.

Not yet.

What if his father was watching?

The thought made his jaw tighten.

Then, quite suddenly, another idea surfaced.

Theron’s expression changed at once, a spark of understanding brightening in his eyes.

Dreams.

Of course.

He could find her there.

If the waking world was being watched, then the place beyond waking might still belong to him. It was reckless. It was uncertain. But it was also the only opening he could think of that did not place him directly under his father’s gaze.

He climbed out of the bath in one swift motion, dried himself, and dressed with unusual haste. By the time he was done, his thoughts had already gone far ahead of him, pulling toward that strange, half-remembered place where her voice had once reached him in sleep.

He crossed to the bed and sat down heavily, then lay back and closed his eyes.

The darkness welcomed him.

And for once, he entered willingly.