Chapter 5

A ria returned to the palace with a smile on her face despite the late hour. She'd paid and dismissed her guards, and she tended to her own horse to avoid waking a stablehand. Then she snuck into the castle through the servants' entrance in the kitchen.

Cook had dozed off on a bench. The woman spent far too many late nights and early mornings tending to Aria's family and the frequent palace guests. Aria fetched a blanket from the linens closet beside the laundry room, then returned to tuck it around the woman's shoulders. Cook shifted in her sleep, turning her head, but did not wake.

Aria continued creeping through hallways, holding tightly to a letter bearing Widow Morton's seal that outlined the points of their discussion. The king's seal would finalize the agreement. Simply holding it, Aria felt as if she held a cloud. She floated toward her room.

Though she convinced herself not to wake her father until morning—already imagining his pride, his deep voice saying, Well done, Aria —she couldn't manage the same restraint with her sister. She ducked through the door between their adjoining bedchambers, tiptoeing up to Eliza's four-poster bed, where the younger princess's silhouette could be seen beneath the rise and fall of a thick comforter.

"Eliza!" Aria hissed. Playfully, she slapped the covers a few times. "Eliza, wake up, I'm back! I did it!"

But Eliza slept on. Aria frowned; her sister was not a deep sleeper. The girl insisted servants put thicker coverings on her windows because even a small amount of light disturbed her rest.

Aria lit a lamp.

Eliza slept on.

No matter how Aria shook her sister or shouted, she would not wake. Finally, in a rush of terror, Aria fled to her father's bedchamber, Widow Morton's letter falling from her hands.

"Father, something's happened to Eliza!"

But the king would not wake either.

At last, Aria realized what she should have noticed immediately. No one had come running when she shouted. Not a single guard stood awake at post. Instead, they snoozed against doors, slumped like Cook on her bench.

The entire castle had fallen under a sleeping Cast.

With numb steps, Aria returned to the hallway and picked up the widow's letter. She pried the seal free and read the interior, but it was only their peace agreement, every word exactly as she'd witnessed the widow inscribe it.

As she watched, the ink began to run. It trickled in tiny liquid rivers down the page, dripping from the bottom edge but vanishing before it hit the floor.

"Confused, Highness?"

Aria stiffened at the voice. It brought a winter chill, reminiscent of a frosted mountainside. Slowly, she turned. The shadowed hallway stretched before her, moonlight spilling through arched windows.

A thin sheen of water slid along one wall, drawing closer until it came to rest before Aria like a full-length mirror. Except it was not her own reflection looking back at her. It was a woman in a black-lace dress.

Widow Morton stood as stoic and pale-faced as her manor house. "I apologize for my deception. Though I prefer a straightforward approach, strategy must be adjusted to match an opponent."

"What's happening?" Aria rasped, reaching a trembling hand for the wall behind her.

Displaying fear. Mark.

"His Majesty claims my son's death was an unfortunate necessity. I wonder how he reached that conclusion so easily; it was not easy for me. What's happening now is also an unfortunate necessity . One hundred days, Highness. Over the next one hundred days, His Majesty's line will die—beginning with you."

"We talked peace! You signed—"

"There can be no peace between tyrant and oppressed. I did not begin this war; it began three centuries ago with a brand. As you seared your contempt into us, we at last sear our response into you: No more ."

Aria's trembling stilled. The water mirror rippled at the edges, droplets bursting free to splatter stone.

"You claim to prefer honesty," Aria said. "Then be honest. This can't be about the brand, since our peace agreement would have removed it."

The widow ignored her. "You have always demeaned magic, and those of us possessing it have kept our heads down out of a desire to live peaceably. Now King Peregrine has removed the option for peaceable living."

"This is about your son. You bear a personal grudge, but you are dragging an entire kingdom into it with you!"

Lifting her chin, the widow stared Aria down from within the rippling dark. "You are a na?ve child, displayed in the very way you speak to me. If you comprehended the smallest droplet of my power, you would flee."

"Power to make iced tea, you mean?"

Loss of temper. Mark. Aria flinched at her own words. This was the woman she'd meant to make peace with. Instead, she was provoking her further.

Widow Morton smirked. "Tell me, Highness, what is tea?" When Aria didn't respond, she went on, "Fluid Caster, I have been called—a frivolous title, as if I perform party tricks, turning wine to water for the enjoyment of others. But I'll invite you to listen to your heart . Listen as it pumps , as it picks up speed within your chest, as the thundering truth rushes through your mind. What is it pumping? What sustains your life , Highness?"

Aria followed the widow's gaze down to her bandaged finger. In the chaos of other events, she'd forgotten about the broken teacup, about her injury. At the reminder, she heard the rush of blood in her ears, just as the widow predicted.

"Blood is only fluid," Widow Morton said, "and a princess is only blood."

When Aria looked up, she saw that the woman held a small white towel, stained red down the center. One of her servants must have delivered it to her after tending Aria's injury. Too late, the princess realized her mistake, the worst she'd ever made.

Her father had been right. This woman had never been interested in compromise or reconciliation. She had called for blood, and Aria had delivered it right to her door.

"In the morning," Widow Morton said, "the castle will wake as usual. But each night, they will slumber, and you will not. As the king is determined to see us divided between Casters and non-Casters, so shall you, Highness, be divided as well. By day, you will feel your exhaustion, an impulse as natural as magic, but if you succumb, you will be punished. By night, you will have your strength but no one to share it with. You will be left to wander alone, isolated. Perhaps you might use the time to ponder the isolation of magic users, alone in a world that ought to be home. Perhaps you might use the time to finally accomplish something good.

"Regardless, as the curse draws strength from you, it will grow and spread to your sister, Eliza. When this is finished, I will see His Majesty's family destroyed as mine has been." The widow's smile was cold. "One hundred days, Highness. Start counting."