The Lady frowned. “I’m hoping that won’t be necessary. The emperor and his Elev—” She stopped again, glancing at me. “The emperor’s … friends … are too smart for that. My daughter’s selection must happen as naturally as possible.”

Kathleen laughed. “Do we have to keep censoring what we say? She’s going to find out eventually.”

“Ignorance will make her seem pure,” The Lady said grimly. “The emperor loves girls like that.”

“Then you’re making the wish today?” Woo In asked. The Lady nodded, and to my shock, she cupped Woo In’s face just as she had cupped mine. He leaned into the touch, kissing her palm. I was jealous immediately.

She said, “I know you’ll keep her safe.”

He scanned her features with hunger, a moth before a candle. “I believe in this cause,” he said.

She fondled his hair. “And I believe in you.”

“Why are we going to Oluwan?” I demanded. “Mother, are you coming too?”

“No, Made-of-Me.” The Lady reclined on one of our hall’s broad window seats. The sun backlit her frame in a halo. “I will come for you when the time is right.” She patted her lap, nodding at me.

For the rest of my life, I wished the universe had given me a sign then. A warning of what was about to happen. But no—the air was warm and serene, and honeybirds sang in the distance as I scrambled, eagerly, into my mother’s arms.

She stroked my back for a moment, gazing at the hazy Swanian sky. “How frightened you must be,” she told someone I could not see. “You caged me like a bird, but you could not make me sing.” Then she told Kathleen, “Give her the portrait.”

A gilded oval frame was placed in my hands. A boy stared back at me, with tightly curled hair and the brightest smile I’d ever seen. Naive brown eyes shone from a dark, broad-featured face.

“Why is he happy?” I asked.

The Lady raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you curious who he is?” I shrugged, and so she answered my question. “He is happy because he has everything you want. Power. Wealth. Legacy. His father stole those things from you, and gave them to him.”

“Be careful, Lady,” Kathleen muttered. “Remember: She must fall in love with him.”

My brow creased with confusion. I couldn’t remember ever wanting power or wealth. And why did I have to love him? But The Lady’s pressing arms and the scent of jasmine jumbled my thoughts. I snuggled against her, forgetting the boy with his stolen happiness. I would trade all the wealth in Aritsar to be held. To be touched without fear. To never be called dangerous.

“Are you listening, Made-of-Me?” The Lady whispered. I closed my eyes and nodded, resting my cheek on her breast. Her heart raced like a hummingbird. Her next words were halting, cautious. “When you meet this boy in the portrait …”

Something that had slept for years rose in my belly, searing my skin, like the cuff on Melu’s arm had done. I opened my eyes. For a moment, in my reflection on the portrait’s surface, my pupils glowed like emeralds.

“When you love him the most, and when he anoints you as his own …” The Lady touched the boy’s face, blotting out his dazzling smile. “I command you to kill him.”

I RETCHED INTO THE BOWL BETWEEN MY LEGS, stomach lurching with the jostle of the mule-and-box.

“I told you traveling by lodestone was a bad idea,” Kathleen snapped at Woo In as she emptied my sick bowl out the window. “We should have taken camels. Lodestones are nasty powerful. She’s never been exposed to magic before.”

“She was raised in an invisible manor house,” Woo In pointed out dryly. “She’ll be fine. Besides, from the looks of it, the kid would have been sick however we traveled.”

It was my first time in a mule-and-box—in anything with wheels. After leaving Bhekina House, we had crossed two realms in two weeks. By mule, camel, or river barge, the trip would have taken months. But we had traveled by lodestone: a powerful, hazardous magic that dissolved bodies and reformed them leagues away. Ports were scattered throughout Aritsar, guarded by imperial soldiers. Whenever we passed through them, Kathleen had forced my face beneath a hood.

“Stay down,” she had grunted. “You’re The Lady’s spitting image.”

I didn’t understand why resembling my mother was dangerous. In fact—in the thrill of adventure—I often forgot all about The Lady’s wish. Her lethal words grew hazy as I witnessed marvels from my books and scrolls. Town. Market. Mountain. Lake. Forest. In a world so big, what were the chances of meeting that boy in the portrait?

After the first lodestone crossing, I had vomited my breakfast onto Kathleen’s boots. The Imperial Guard warriors had warned against traveling by lodestone more than once a month, but Woo In had insisted on two crossings a week.

After the fourth crossing, my left arm vanished.

I had nearly fainted in terror, and the limb flickered a few times before deciding, at last, to return. Woo In had relented then, switching us to a mule-and-box. We endured hours of stiff, dusty travel, stopping only to sleep at mudbrick village inns. I inhaled ginger soup to settle my stomach before collapsing onto a straw bedroll, too exhausted to dream.

Today, the lodestone nausea had finally begun to subside. After retching into the bowl, I felt much better, and I leaned curiously from the mule-and-box window. Our destination of Oluwan was coastal, a land of ferny palms and orange groves, with long, warm days and cool, rain-kissed nights. My heart thrummed as the unfamiliar landscape rushed by: bumpy plains of green and gold, dotted with lakes and palm trees. I gulped the morning air. It tasted like citrus and salt water.

“Little demon,” hissed Kathleen when she noticed me. She tried to pull me back, grappling with my blue cotton wrapper. “For Am’s sake—someone could see, you brat. Stay down!”

“I won’t,” I said, gasping in laughter as the wind whipped my beaded braids. “I’ll never stay away from a window again.”

“You won’t live to see another,” Kathleen threatened, managing to wrestle me down at last. “Not if you keep making a spectacle. You’re a secret, brat. You’re not supposed to exist.”

I frowned. “Because my father’s an ehru?”

“It would not matter if your father was the devil,” Kathleen said. “To the emperor, your mother will always be the greater threat.”

I pressed her, but Kathleen refused to say anything more. So I sulked, scooting away from her and joining Woo In on his side of the cramped sitting space.

I still hadn’t forgiven Woo In for kissing The Lady’s hand, but at least he left me alone. Half the time he hardly spoke at all, except to mutter sarcastic remarks, or to curse when his birthmarks glowed.

“Those pictures hurt you, don’t they?” I frowned up at him. “Why didn’t the map go away when you came back from the Breach?”

Woo In stiffened. “The map will disappear when the nightmares do,” he said sourly.

I knew better than to ask more questions, but curiosity gnawed at me. How old had Woo In been when his parents gave him up to the abiku? What had the Underworld been like?

Once, at an inn, I had pretended to sleep as Woo In gazed through our second-story window. His shoulders had trembled, and after a moment, I realized he was sobbing. As if fleeing from monsters only he could see, he threw on his silk cape and leapt from the window. Then he soared above the dark rooftops, his lean body silhouetted against the moon.

“Can all Songlanders fly?” I asked him, jostling his shoulder in the mule-and-box.

His smooth brow furrowed, displeased that I knew his secret. “No. It’s my Hallow.”

“Hallow?”

“My birth gift. Only those with Hallows may serve The Lady. All of us have one.”

All of us. The phrase made me curious: How many friends did The Lady have? “Do you have a Hallow?” I asked Kathleen.

She nodded. “I can change the appearance of whoever I please. Including you, though I think the lodestones have jumbled your insides quite enough already.” She scowled out the window, growing thoughtful. “My gift comes in handy, since Mewish people gawk at isokens. At least in Oluwan City, no one cares if I’m striped or spotted.”

“Show me,” I begged, and suddenly, instead of Kathleen, a second Woo In sat across from me. I jumped, grabbing the first Woo In’s arm in fright. But now he was Kathleen.

“Greetings, Lady’s Daughter,” droned the illusion Woo In, flipping its straight jet hair. “It is I, your sullen nanny prince. Watch as I brood over my tragic childhood.”

Illusion Kathleen rolled its eyes. “Very funny.”

Kathleen shimmered back into her own skin and restored Woo In’s face.

“Prince?” I echoed, frowning. My tutors had made me memorize the living members of every dynasty on the continent, and I’d never heard of a Prince Woo In. Queen Hye Sun of Songland had only one heir: Crown Princess Min Ja.