Declan and Nadia strode arm-in-arm toward the atrium; he had promised her a tour of the palace, and was not about to renege on his word simply because his father seemed to be descending into madness and maliciousness.

"Your father seems..." Nadia bit her lip. The possibilities hung in the air. He doubted she would lie to him, but it would be interesting to see her try. "Fascinating."

"Fascinating?" Declan repeated. "That's all?"

She shrugged. "It's true, isn't it?"

"Which part of the palace would you like to see first?" he asked, changing the subject. Declan hadn't seen his father in thirteen years and the man had barely said a word to him. His fingernails dug into his palms as he walked faster, practically dragging Nadia alongside him.

"Slow down," she said, pacing faster to keep up with him. Her heels clicked against the floor, which had changed from a mosaic of horses to one of gentle blue waves. "You're going to leave a bruise, and then what would your father think?"

"I suppose it would confirm his pre-existing beliefs about me," said Declan, gritting his teeth as he slowed down reluctantly. "And you barely bleed, Nadia. Have you ever even bruised?"

"I don't wish to find out," she said, dropping his arm.

He reached for her. "Come along, then. I'll be gentle, I promise."

"You're hardly a gentleman," she said, but took his hand anyway as they walked at a moderate pace.

Beneath their feet, the mosaic tiles transformed into a pattern of water that made him feel as though he were walking on the ocean. Her white, billowing trousers fluttered in the breeze, the white stark against the blue, reminding him of their first encounter on the beach. That had been only a few months ago, yet it felt like a lifetime.

"I never claimed to be one," he said as they reached the atrium.

Glass walls encased them on all sides, the tiled floor giving way to dirt and grass. Flowering plants sat in pots around the atrium, while vines with every conceivable type of fruit and vegetable wrapped around lattices that climbed to the glass ceiling. Servants and gardeners were busily tending to the season's harvest. The majority of the palace's food was grown in the atrium, especially in the winter.

Nadia's mouth fell open before she could control her reaction. "It's beautiful. I've never seen anything like it. In Milona, we had a few ferns, but nothing like this..."

"Really?" he said. She rarely brought up Milona around him, usually reluctant to discuss the past. Perhaps she felt that it would remind her of who was responsible for the obliteration of her home. "Well, I'm glad you like it. Did you ever garden?"

"A few times, but I wasn't very good at it. My ferns always died of thirst," she admitted. "I wouldn't dare try my hand at it here."

"I remember running around this place as a child, escaping my nurse," he said. "I once hid in an enormous pot for hours... I nearly suffocated to death when they started to fill it with soil."

She laughed, but it was tinged with sorrow. "Didn't your father send anyone to look for you?"

Declan shrugged. "I doubt he noticed I was gone."

"That's rather sad," she said, but her pity vanished when she reached for a pink peony, her eyes lighting up. "Oh, this is lovely! But what do you do with the flowers here?"

"Some of them are cultivated until they can be planted in the gardens outside," he said, his shoes crunching over a gravel path. A thousand aromas filled the air: cacao beans, vanilla plants, a dozen breeds of flower. "The others, well, I don't know. I remember my sisters' maids used to come here and pick them to fill the vases in their rooms."

"You have sisters?" she said suddenly. "Where are they now?"

"Married," he said simply. "They're both older than me."

"Two sisters," Nadia said, as though tucking the information away like a useful object. "Any brothers?"

"A younger brother, but I don't know where he is now," he said, not wanting to think of him. The thought of his name hurt more than he wished to admit. "Do you want a flower? I'll have a vase sent to your rooms."

She shook her head, so quickly that he thought he'd mispoken. "They would die..."

"A potted plant, then," he suggested, before remembering her words. "Your maid can tend to it."

"I don't wish to create more work for her," she said. "I can simply come down here and enjoy them at any time."

"You make an excellent point," he said, just as a servant came skidding across the floor to reach them.

"Your Highness," the boy said, bowing low before him. "His Majesty has requested that Nadia Sancta be brought to the scrying room."

"The scrying room?" Nadia repeated, already stepping away from him to follow the boy.

"It is where the fortune teller resides, ma'am," said the servant.

Declan went after them. He wasn't about to let Nadia walk into one of his father's maddening schemes alone.

-

The fortune teller was not a wizened old crone. In fact, she was so young that Declan had his suspicions about whether this fortune teller wasn't actually one of his father's bastard children. She couldn't have been any older than Rowena was. Still, she sat enthroned on a round wooden stool, her garments made of simple white fabric that draped over her body, reminding him of the priestesses back in Milona.

His father's scrying room was equipped with a stool for the fortune teller to sit on, which rested on a plain wooden dais. There was an altar in front of her, carved out of an immense hunk of white marble. On the altar, various implements had been scattered haphazardly, the only disorderly thing about the place. Declan could make out a mirror, a candle, some matches, a book with a white, leather-bound cover, and a length of white silk, whose purpose he couldn't quite discern.

The entire room was bedecked in white: floor, walls, ceiling. It felt both spacious and cramped, and were he a different sort of man, he might have worried about his shoes leaving dirt on the pristine floors. As it was, he couldn't bring himself to care. Declan certainly didn't care about what this so-called fortune teller had to say.

She bowed low when they entered the room, mostly due to deference for his status than any real respect for him. The last fortune teller had truly been a hag, old with a curtain of frizzy, grey hair and wrinkles so deep that her eyes disappeared when she smiled. Which had been a rare occurrence, considering she had hated him.

"Thief of Hats," the fortune teller greeted him when he neared the dais with Nadia at his side. She straightened up from her deep curtsy, revealing a round face with curious brown eyes and deep brown hair, cut bluntly at her collarbone.

Nadia looked at him like she was trying not to laugh at the absurd epithet.

"And you..." The fortune teller turned to Nadia as though appraising her the way a jeweler might examine a fine ruby. "You must be the Cursed, and the Blessed."

Nadia's smile fell from her face as she heard the oracle's words. "I came to have my fortune told, as decreed by the king. I did not come to be disparaged so."

The fortune teller's brows rose. Up close, she was less childlike and seemed more ageless. She could have passed for twelve or fifty-two. But her languid way of speaking made his skin crawl. "I assure you, Nadia Sancta, my intention was never to belittle you. The same cannot be said for your... companion."

"Every fortune-teller makes quite clear her dislike for me," he said. "I can assure you that you are hardly special."

The fortune teller ignored him. "I am Marya. Here, take a seat."

As though by magic, a chair became distinguishable among the vast white blankness of the room. Nadia pulled it out and sat. Glancing up at him, curiosity was written over her every feature.

"What, am I not worthy of a chair?" he asked, leaning his elbows against the altar. He had never been one for sacred things.

No, he much preferred to break that sanctity apart and see what was really behind it. Darkness. Rot. Ruin.

"Nadia Sancta, please see fit to remove your companion if he cannot behave himself," Marya said, picking up the mirror and peering deeply into it. "For a prince, I thought he might have learned by now not to put his elbows on the table."

"This is an altar," he said, at the same time that Nadia spoke the identical words. A smile curved across his face. "Not a table."

"Whatever you say, Your Highness." Marya waved a careless hand before setting down the mirror. She pointed at Nadia. "Come closer, would you?"

Nadia obeyed, leaning against the altar, though Declan noticed that Marya hardly scolded her when she rested her wrists against the altar, fingers clutching the cool stone as though holding on for dear life. "Should I..."

Marya shook her head. "I read faces. It is my specialty. Others examine palm lines or tea leaves, but I prefer faces. It was taught to me by my mother and her mother before her."

"And what does my face tell you about my portending doom?" Nadia asked, looking as though she were trying to hide a laugh.

"Hold still," Marya said, as though Nadia were sitting for a portrait. "Ah, yes... Good, good, very good."

She nodded to herself, as though Nadia's future were quite literally written across her face. "Very good. The king demanded, however, that a fuller reading be done. Thus, I must ask you to light this candle."

Marya picked up the selection of matches and hed them out to Nadia. "Take one."

Nadia chose a green-tipped match, and when she struck it and lit the candle, the flame glowed silver before giving off a normal golden glow. In spite of himself and all that he knew about fire and the elements that could change the colour of its flames, Declan had to resist the urge to gasp.

"Hmm..." Marya lifted the candle to her face, heedless of the danger flickering before her. "Silver. Very interesting."

"Is there a point to all of this?" Declan asked, tucking his hands into his pockets and retrieving a ring of keys. The same set of keys that, if he remembered correctly, had nearly burned him on that fateful day in the temple. The ones that he had lifted from that table in the market in Milona. That felt like a lifetime ago and yet a breath away.

"Yes," Marya said. "I will need to write a comprehensive report on your future."

Nadia laughed, backing away from the table. "A report? That seems awfully... businesslike."

Declan glanced at her, humour dancing in his eyes. "Come now, priestess. I thought you believed in these rituals and their validity. Don't tell me you are ignorant to the existence of magic."

Nadia pulled her shoulders back, her gaze steely. "I think fortunes can hold some truth, but..."

He mulled it over in his mind, thinking of how she must have felt. She had been barely old enough to walk when her parents had abandoned her at the temple, for a fate she could not control. A curse. Perhaps she placed too much weight in it, as it was true, but she also did not wish to believe it true at all. She wished to deny it, to deny that she held magic, to deny her power. Did she fear it, or did she fear being taken advantage of for it?

"The majority of fortune-tellers are charlatans," he said quickly. "I agree."

At that, Marya blew out the candle and gestured at the door. "Both of you may leave."

When they paused, she snapped her fingers. "Now."

They practically flew out of the scrying room, shoving down their laughter at the enraged fortune-teller.