Never had Vivia seen a city so large.

Though tens of leagues away, Azmir consumed the horizon like wildfire across the plains. City of the Golden Spires, City of Eternal Flame. This city—and the enormous, expanding canyon around it—had as many absurd titles as its empress. And all of them, she had to admit, were deserved. From the striped canyon walls that ascended into the Kendura Hills to the whitecapped Sirmayans beyond, from the crowded wharves that clustered halfway across Lake Scarza to the Floating Palace on its red-earthed island at the center, Vivia had never seen or imagined any place like this.

As the six Windwitches carried Vivia ever closer to the imperial capital, the hard angles of its towers came into bright focus under the sun. It was ten times the size of Lovats—twenty times, even, and with a hundred smaller villages to dot the surrounding hills. Yet it was not the scale that stunned Vivia. Fresh, clean, standing, Azmir looked as if it had been built only a year before, even though she knew it to be centuries old.

As the Floating Palace rushed in closer, a white wonder of towers broken up by bursts of green, Vivia’s stomach snagged. She tried to blame her spinning vision and wobbling knees on the descent, but once she landed, she still felt like hurling. Like charging for the nearest cypress trees and hiding far from sight.

For there was nothing, nothing that this lush, vibrant empire could possibly want from Vivia or Nubrevna. When it came to trade or treaties, Marstok had all of the advantages and none of the shames.

No regrets. Keep moving. She was here; she had power; she would not waste this trip.

Vivia smoothed at her silver coat before yanking off her goggles and attempting to tame her hair. It did not comply.

Meanwhile, sixteen women and men in green uniforms now marched toward her. None carried more than a single sword at their hips, and most carried no weapon at all. Which meant these guards were purely ceremonial—no show of threat, nor even a show of power. This was a polite welcoming party, and the Empress did not wish to scare Vivia away.

It wasn’t working.

“Your Highness,” said a woman at the fore, and in absolute coordination, the soldiers bowed low. “Her Imperial Majesty awaits you in her personal quarters.”

Personal quarters, Vivia thought as she beckoned for her own people to follow. The Empress was truly going out of her way to keep Vivia at ease.

And Vivia truly did not like it. She felt like the crab lured into the kitchen pot. The waters might start out cool and blissful, but outside the copper, flames were cranking higher.

Vivia’s sense of unease only increased as she followed the soldiers through a garden brimming with rhododendron (that should have stopped blooming months ago), between two marble columns delicately carved to look like tree trunks, and finally into the actual palace.

They encountered none of the imperial bodyguards known as Adders in the stark, marble halls, nor any more soldiers than the ones leading Vivia. Only servants passed by, and they were quick to duck aside and bow.

Perhaps most unsettling of all were the frequent clay basins filled with water. Twelve of them, actually, at every turn in the hall or every intersection. There were no lilies or fish within the basins, and the clay did not match the iron decor everywhere else—the iron planters for the lemon trees, the iron sconces for Firewitched flame, the iron wind chimes with no wind to ever hit them.

Once again, it was as if Empress Vaness were saying, Look! I have given you water for your witchery. You are safe! Relax!

Vivia did not think she could be any less relaxed, and as a curved doorway appeared at the end of the hall, framed with Adders and two more clay basins, Vivia had to concentrate on simply keeping her feet moving forward.

She should not have come here. Oh, Noden, why had she come here? This was a terrible idea, and those sad little buckets of water were not enough to save her from anything.

Ten paces before the door, the welcome guard split into two perfect rows. They said nothing as Vivia and her Windwitches strode past, so Vivia did not slow.

Clack, clack, clack. Her boots drummed out a funeral dirge. Though the Marstoks watched her, she couldn’t help but brush at her coat, tug at her cuffs, and lastly, pat along the edges of her face until the Nihar frown that Merik wore so easily had settled into place.

When Vivia was almost to the Empress’s door, it swung open, so silently it must have been oiled yesterday. Or maybe it was oiled every day in a place as wealthy as this one.

Beyond, afternoon sunlight streamed. Beyond, waited the Empress of Marstok. And beyond, Vivia prayed, was not proof that she should never have come here.

She crossed the threshold.

Once, as a child, Vivia’s aunt had shown her a music box. From Dalmotti, the thing had been bewitched to only open at Evrane’s touch. At the time, it was the most beautiful thing Vivia had ever seen—white with gold edges—and when the box’s lid had cranked up and the tune had twinkled out, she’d felt transported to another world. A world where she did not need masks, and where no one would ever try to hurt her or steal what wasn’t theirs.

For a brief instant, as the sunlight caressed her, as the white simplicity of the space settled into her vision and wind chimes rang from a terrace across the room, Vivia felt that same sense of beauty. Of safety and peace. Here the little fox could be the little fox forever.

Yet just as Evrane had snapped shut the music box and scolded Vivia for holding it too long, as soon as Vaness swept into Vivia’s view, the world—that perfect, untouchable world—gusted away.

“Your Highness,” Vaness said as she entered from the terrace. Her black silk gown floated around her, a simple dress with a high neck, capped sleeves, and skirts just short enough to expose slippered feet. She bobbed her head, and Vivia matched the movement, if awkwardly.

Hell-waters, the Empress was smaller than she remembered. Vivia suddenly felt as large as a sea fox and a hundred times less graceful.

“Your officers may wait here, if that is acceptable.” The Empress spoke in smooth, if thickly accented Nubrevnan. She motioned to several white-cushioned chairs against the wall. Orchids dangled between them, and at Vivia’s nod, her people stiffly took seats.

They looked absurd. Navy uniforms and wind-blustered hair against the gossamer elegance of the palace.

“Let us speak on the terrace,” the Empress suggested. Then she walked purposefully away, leaving Vivia time to murmur, “Wait here. You know what to do if anything goes wrong.”

Subtle salutes followed, and Vivia found her lips quirking. Good officers, these Windwitches. Though she missed having Stix at her side, she didn’t doubt for a second that each of these soldiers was reliable.

On the terrace, Vivia found two iron chairs and an iron table set with sugared figs and a pitcher of water. Nothing elaborate, and no servants or Adders in sight. In fact, the only view was of a tall clay wall around the terrace, and cypress trees clustered within an herb garden that filled the air with sage and lavender.

Vaness made no move to sit, and as the moments trickled by, she openly studied Vivia. Inspected her from top to bottom, no embarrassment in her gaze, and no judgment either.

Vivia let her. She even went so far as to clasp her hands behind her back and stare right back. The truth was that acting like two bitches sniffing bottoms in an alley was much easier than the polite diplomatic nothings Vivia’s mother had taught her.

“You have … grown,” Vaness said eventually. “I believe the last I saw you, you had not yet developed.”

“You had,” Vivia replied, and it was true. The single time she and Vaness had encountered each other—ten years ago—Vivia had still been a girl, but Vaness had been a woman grown.

She had been stunning, even at age seventeen, and she was even more stunning now. Especially as a slight smile toyed across her lips.

“Let us sit.” Vaness eased onto the iron chair, her posture perfect. “We have much to discuss.”

“Hye,” Vivia agreed, and for half a breath, she debated mimicking the Empress’s grace. Everything felt so soft, so dainty, so far removed from everything that Vivia was … and yet somehow, everything Vivia wanted to be.

But no, she was not here to be cowed. She was not here to be manipulated. She was here for Nubrevna, and nothing more. So as she sat with the same brusqueness she would use around any of her soldiers, and as she patted once more at the edges of her face, she summoned her inner bear. “We do have much to discuss,” she declared. “Such as, first and foremost, what exactly in Noden’s watery Hell am I doing here?”

* * *