The candles guttered when Seraphina slammed the door, their flames curving away like startled things. The memory of the throne hall still burned behind her eyes: the goblet shattering, the wine splattering like spilled ink across black marble, the servant crumpling as if his breath were a stitch snapped. Poison. That was the word the hall kept murmuring, like a prayer or a curse. Not a blade. Not a blade at all.

She had knocked it her hand, sudden and fierce, had thrown the cup from Kael’s ...