Esmera's hearing had returned to its full strength. That could be the only reason why a small thump on the balcony outside her bedroom roused her from the deep, peaceful sleep she had forgotten how to experience.

She had never felt this safe, not before Stephan and certainly not after. For the first time, she knew someone who was looking out for her and meant his promises.

But Esmera no longer felt so safe when another tap sounded from the balcony, made louder by the silent night. She propped herself up on her elbow, frowning at the clock on her nightstand. It was 01:18. Nobody in the house woke up this early or stayed up this late.

Which meant that whoever was outside her room wasn't one of her housemates but likely someone who sought to defeat them.

Esmera covered her mouth to muffle her squeal even though it would've been too soft for anyone without auditory powers to hear anyway.

How had her and Tauram's location been found out? Had someone betrayed them?

Esmera slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the glass doors leading out to the balcony. She split the silk curtains a crack's width apart and peered between them. Now awake as well, Jammas swooped down from his nest at the top of the wardrobe and took up his favourite place on Esmera's head.

Tauram was outside, kneeling and stroking Lundas's head. He was beautiful by night, a figure from a fable etched in moonlight. For a moment, Esmera smiled to herself, resting her head against the wall like a teenager with a crush. Only when she heard his words did she frown.

"You ready, boy?" he asked.

Esmera opened the door and stepped outside. The cold night brushed against her. She suppressed a shiver, running her hands down her arms to banish her goosebumps as she asked, "Ready for what?"

Tauram and Lundas both looked up at Esmera, startled. When the prince's dark eyes rested on her chest, she realised how low-cut her nightdress was, and as bad, how short it was. She folded her arms, as much for decency as to warm herself, and Tauram's eyes returned to hers.

Esmera's brow furrowed. "Are you going somewhere, Tauram?"

The prince lowered his gaze to Lundas, stroking the clouded leopard's silvery fur. It was ludicrous to be going anywhere at this late hour. That must be what made Tauram so reluctant to answer Esmera. She could almost see the reply flitting about his mind.

I think we're getting off-topic.

He let out a breath. "No, I'm just going to bed."

Esmera narrowed her eyes. Instead of evading her as he had done before, he had lied to her instead.

She took in his tunic, the coat that shielded him from the night's coolness, and the boots that were made for hiking mountains, not crossing bedrooms. "Is that why you're all dressed up? To go to bed?"

"No." Tauram sighed as he straightened to his full height. He looked down, pressing his lips together while Lundas rubbed himself against his legs, clearly impatient to be on his way wherever they were headed.

"Tauram." Esmera crossed the balcony to him, her silky nightdress shimmering in the starlight. She took the prince's hand in hers. "You can tell me anything."

He had become the safe place she needed, and she would do the same for him. It was the unspoken promise in her kiss, one she wouldn't break.

"I'm going to the palace." The words escaped Tauram, rushed with relief at finally being spoken.

Esmera's eyes widened. That was the last place she would've expected Tauram to want to go, but it shouldn't have been, not after all the years since he had last seen the place he had once called home.

Even so, Esmera shook her head. "It's not safe for you there."

It was probably the most dangerous place in Milatanur for the king's most noteworthy exile.

Tauram sighed. He looked out at the dark horizon blotted by smoky clouds and sheared by sharp mountains as if he could see the palace. Maybe he could even though Esmera couldn't. She didn't know where to look.

"I know it's not safe for me, but I need to know if it's safe for my brother and my sisters." Tauram's voice was as distant as his gaze but heavy with wistfulness, with yearning.

Esmera read the determination in his eyes, saw it in the set of his perfect mouth. "You've been meaning to do this for a while."

"Yes." Tauram's gaze returned to her. "I wanted to check on them ever since I returned to Milatanur, especially after I saw Kerani in Parnakshi. I couldn't sleep tonight, so I decided it was the night. I swear, if Ruagu has touched any of my sisters, if he has hurt my brother..." His fist clenched at his side.

Esmera sensed every other muscle that made him clench as well.

She wished she could condemn him for being reckless, convince him to go to his bed where he would be safe from immortal, usurping sorcerers, at least for a little while, but the truth was, she understood him.

Even with the years between them, even with how different their lives had been. What Esmera wanted most was to know about her family's fate. That just happened to fall into their plan to stop Ruagu, fortunately for her, so there had never been a reason to question whether it was something that had to get done. Tauram's desire didn't fit into their mission, but Esmera couldn't stop him. She had no right to stand in the way of someone else's closure.

She squared her shoulders even as the icy breeze nipped at her skin. "I'm coming with you."

"Esmera..." Tauram took both her hands, shaking his head.

Her gaze stayed steady on him. "I'm not letting you go there alone. Besides, it might be useful for me to familiarise myself with the palace before we arrive there to face King Ruagu."

Tauram pressed his lips together as he considered. "Fine." Despite the reluctance of his agreement, his emotive artist's fingers played with a stray curl that fell over Esmera's forehead. "I wish I wasn't so bad at resisting your company. The palace is probably more dangerous for you than for me."

Esmera banished the thought of what would happen if they were caught, if there was no one to wield the Finnaaz weapon when Jilhari's deadline dawned, if there was nobody to take the throne King Ruagu vacated. If she dwelled too long on it, on the deadly rot that spread from the king's wicked hands, she would keep Tauram from the palace. She'd lock him in her room if she had to.

Instead, she swallowed her misgivings and smiled at him. "You'll keep us invisible, and I'll make sure we're inaudible. We'll go in there, get your answers and be out before you know it."

Esmera stood on her tiptoes and kissed him softly. She might've kept Tauram from his journey if she was sure they were doomed, but she wasn't. They had magical abilities to protect them, to serve whatever purpose they had in mind.

Tauram pulled away first to say, "I will make sure the guards don't see us. If there's one thing I know about Ruagu, it's that he becomes very complacent when he thinks there isn't any threat."

"I trust you. We're going to be fine," said Esmera, as much to convince him as herself.

"We are." The firmness in Tauram's voice told her that he wouldn't allow anything else.

Esmera brushed back that rebellious black lock of hair that had fallen over Tauram's forehead. "Give me a minute. I need to get dressed."

"I don't know, Esmera." Tauram smirked as he traced a finger along the spaghetti strap running over her bare shoulder. "I like you in that."

Esmera rolled her eyes at him as if his touch didn't make her breath catch in her throat. "This is highly inappropriate for recon, and it's also freezing."

"Touché." Tauram grinned, retracting his hand. "I'll be out here waiting for you."

Esmera hurried into her room, closing the doors behind her to keep the cold out. She pulled the first outfit her hands landed on out of her wardrobe. She couldn't tell its colour, only that it had a crinkly texture and beads lining the neckline as she tugged it over her head. Jammas hovered above her as if to remind her to hurry. It was a night for coats, not shawls, so Esmera pulled one on as she joined Tauram outside, where he seemed to have remembered his modesty.

"Ready, my lady?" He offered Esmera a wool-clad arm.

"I am." Esmera smiled shyly.

They spoke as if they were those oddly familiar strangers that met in a museum in Arkōsāra, even as their kisses lingered between them. They weren't strangers, and they would never be again, but they had to focus on something other than each other for the next little while, something that threatened lives other than theirs.

Jammas settled into Esmera's hair as if to remind her of that.

Tauram grinned at Esmera's familiar before holding her close to his side, cloaking them and their companions in invisibility while Lundas ran in circles around them.

The cottage's balcony disappeared, and a palace materialised to replace it.

Esmera clung to Tauram, expecting warning bells to ring out around them while arrows rained down around them. He might've shared her fear because his arm tightened around her, but there was nothing.

They were well and truly hidden, successful intruders into the last place on earth they should be visiting.

Esmera looked around. She had pictured a medieval-style castle with turrets and moats, but of course, this was the other side of the world.

The Royal Palace of Milatanur was a mansion sprawled across acres, dark-walled and imposing, unlike the sheets of grass and clay pots from which bright pink flowers sprouted. Its reddish roofs curved at the edges, almost like little claws.

Esmera counted the rows of windows lining the palace's walls. There were three, one for each floor. It wasn't exactly the castle she had pictured, but it was the biggest house she had ever seen.

Guards stood stationed at the fence outlining the grounds, backs straight and eyes trained away from the palace, not knowing that the intruders they watched for were right behind them.

Lundas padded along behind Esmera and Tauram as the prince led the way to the palace building. The moist grass dampened their footsteps, blessing them with the silence they needed. Starlight had glinted off the windows, falsely illuminating them, but now that Esmera neared them, she could see that most of them were dark.

"Where are we going?" she whispered as they rounded the corner to the back of the house, passing out of the guards' range.

"The royal wing," Tauram said, his voice as soft as hers. "I don't think anyone will be awake this late, but I just want to see that they're all right."

"So, we're going to look through their windows?" Esmera frowned up in Tauram's direction, but they were as invisible to each other as they were to the rest of the world even though they could feel each other.

"That's the best we can do. I don't know what security is in place, but I don't want to risk being caught by Ruagu if we try to get into the palace. This is safest and easiest."

Esmera could think of so many ways peeping through people's windows in the early morning could go wrong, but she didn't think they had any other options. She trusted Tauram's judgement, and she'd stand with him whatever he chose.

They strode past the first window.

"This was my bedroom." Tauram pulled Esmera past it, hardly giving her a chance to peer through the shredded blinds.

She did see rumpled bed covers and furniture strewn across the floor. That must've been the damage the Yaoguai had done the night the demons ambushed Tauram on his traitorous best friend's orders, and it hadn't changed since.

It had been kept as a sick memorial to a night of betrayal and victory, of sacrifice and delight. It had pained Esmera to hear Tauram's story for the first time, but it angered her to see the evidence of it, as if ten years hadn't passed. As if it had happened yesterday.

Maybe that was how it felt to Tauram because before Esmera knew it, they were approaching the next window.

"This is my brother Danshan's room." Tauram leaned closer to the dark window, raising his hand to block away the moonlight's glare as he peered through the glass.

Beside him, Esmera followed suit.

The room was naked. The bed was bare, as were the curtain rails. Except for the dust coating them, the shelves were bare of the decorations Esmera imagined had once embellished them. The shadows of the night turned the colourless room eerie. It didn't look as though anyone had ever used it.

It chilled Esmera, but Tauram merely sucked in a deep breath and said nothing, leading her to the window into the next room instead.

"This is where my sister Namesha stays."

They looked inside in unison. Where Prince Danshan's room had been a widow, stripped of the person she loved and everything she owned, this room was a bride clad in the finery befitting her big day. The bedspread was a deep red embroidered with silver and gold. Bronze organza curtains embellished with blood-red, beaded roses hung from the poster bed.

Golden statues of deities stood on the mantelpiece at the far end of the room. Esmera couldn't name any of them except for Jilhari, but she guessed that the burly man cradling a handful of crystals beside her was her husband, Munasha, whose name Tauram had also mentioned in one of his creative curses.

Unlike the previous bedroom, this one looked like it did house someone but hadn't been used in as many years.

Tauram's hand tightened around Esmera's.

She didn't have to see him to know to offer him the only comfort she could. "Maybe there's a rational explanation for this."

"Perhaps. Perhaps they both got married and moved away," he said, the hope in his voice faltering before he even reached the end of his sentence.

Esmera couldn't be as hopeful. She was acquainted with the cruelties of life, the stories with sad endings that nobody talked about. She didn't think King Ruagu would spare Tauram's siblings, the greatest threats to the crown he had shed blood to secure, not even out of pity or mercy.

They wandered to the next window, and Esmera figured whose room they'd be looking into next.

"This is Kerani's room," Tauram murmured.

Dolls the princess probably hadn't played with in years stood in a line in front of her mirror, a grotesque reminder of how young she had been when Tauram was banished, little more than a child. Where Princess Namesha's room was bold and assertive, hers was soft and dreamy, pastel shades of blue and purple covering her walls and falling from the white four-poster frame that contained her bed.

As for Princess Kerani, Esmera expected to find her curled in on herself, deep in sleep. Instead, she was awake, and there was someone in her bed with her. Someone with pale, bronze-ringed fingers that he ran through her long black hair and down her bare back.