She was the queen.

The guilt and the horror and the memory of that awful smell might stay with her forever, but she was the queen.

*   *   *

Princess Selene was pronounced dead that evening. Levana made the announcement to the people from the palace’s broadcast center. The video showed pictures of the young princess while Levana struggled to keep her voice somber, even while her nerves tingled from success. It was not happiness—she was very sad to know that victory had required such an appalling act. But success was success, victory was victory. She had done it and now, as the country mourned, she would be the one to lift them out of this tragedy.

Little Selene, barely three years old, would hardly even make a blip in their history. The memory of their little princess would be entirely eclipsed with the reign of Queen Levana.

The fairest queen that Luna had ever known.

For once, she was satisfied. She had Evret. She had her crown.

She did not yet have an heir, but now that she was the last of the royal bloodline, surely fate would smile on even this request. She was all that was left. Not having a child of her own was not an option. After all, Winter couldn’t grow up to be queen. No. Levana would have a child.

With Selene gone, these were the new thoughts that engulfed her. How she would be a great ruler and how the people would love her with all their hearts. And how, when Levana finally gave Evret a child of their own, he too would love her, finally, even more than his darling Solstice.

She was making the life she’d always wanted for herself, and she was close to it now. So very, very close.

But only a week had gone by when Levana began to notice the change.

The way people dropped their eyes when she walked past, not with normal respect, but something akin to fear. Perhaps—was she imagining it? Perhaps even disgust.

The way there was a new coldness from the palace servants. How they all seemed to be biting their tongues, wanting to say something to her and daring not to.

The way that Evret asked her one night why she had gone to get Winter that day. Why she had brought it on herself to take Winter to the doctor’s appointment when clearly it was something the nanny was capable of.

“What do you mean?” Levana asked, her heart in her throat. “She’s my daughter, and I hardly get to spend time with her these days. Why shouldn’t I take her to her appointments?”

“It’s just…”

She tensed. “It’s just what?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

He kissed her, and that was the last that was said of it.

But all this she could have ignored. Let them think she was guilty. Let them accuse her behind closed doors. As the queen of Luna and the only royal descendant of the Blackburn bloodline, no one would dare accuse her to her face.

No—it was another rumor that chilled Levana to her core.

They were saying that Selene had survived.

It was not possible.

It could not be possible.

She had seen the body, smelled the charred flesh, witnessed the aftermath of the fire. A tiny toddler could not have lived through that.

She was dead. She was gone.

It was over.

So why did she go on haunting Levana this way?

*   *   *

“I hope you know that you are not in any trouble,” said Levana. “I only want to make sure I know the complete truth.”

Dr. Eliot stood before her in the center of the throne room. Normally this was the type of proceeding that would be dealt with in front of the entire court, but without knowing what, exactly, the doctor knew, Levana trusted very few people to listen to her testimony. She had even left her personal guards to wait in the corridor, for the last person she wanted to receive an account of this meeting was Evret, and even highly trained guards were not impervious to spreading gossip.

So it was only her, seated on her throne, and her trusted head thaumaturge, Sybil Mira, standing to the side with her hands tucked into the sleeves of her stark white coat.

“I have told you everything that I know, My Queen,” said Dr. Eliot.

“Yes, but … there are rumors. I’m sure you’ve heard them. Rumors that say Princess Selene may have survived the fire? That you, as the first person to inspect the bodies, might have some information about what was found in the fire that you’ve chosen to keep hidden.”

“I would hide nothing from you, My Queen.”

She inhaled a patient breath. “She was my niece, doctor. I deserve to know the truth. If she is still alive, it would … it would pain me very much to think that anyone would withhold that information from me. You know that I loved her as if she were my own.”

Dr. Eliot pressed her lips, the look brief yet intense. “I am sure,” she said, enunciating carefully, “that it would mean a great deal to you had the princess survived, My Queen. But when I saw the body after the fire, I’m afraid she was already lost. There was no saving her.”

“No saving her.” Levana leaned forward. “So you’re saying that she wasn’t dead yet?”

The doctor hesitated. “There was a faint heartbeat. This was mentioned in my report, Your Majesty. But while there was still some life in her when I arrived, she died shortly thereafter. I was there myself when the heartbeat stopped. She is dead.”

Levana gripped the arm of her throne. “And where was that? When her heartbeat stopped. Was that still in the nursery?”

“Yes, My Queen.”