The knock was sharp, deliberate — not the sound of a messenger or a lost traveler, but something more delibarate. Intentional. Gale froze halfway through his sentence. The ring was in his pocket, his fingertips grazing the edge of it.

  Fran rose slowly, glancing toward the door with a frown. “That’s... not Emaen.”

  Gale followed her to the entryway but stayed just behind, the taste of panic still thick in his mouth. When Fran opened the door, the breeze rolled in — warm and pine-scented, brushing past her skirts and carrying with it the faint dust of the road.

  A single carriage stood at the base of the path, elegant and dark, with silver trim and a velvet canopy. Near it waited a coachman and a pale, sleepy maid. But the woman at the door didn’t wait to be announced.

  She looked like a vision conjured from some distant court: tall, bronze-skinned, with long dark hair tied in loose coils, and eyes so dark they seemed to drink in the candlelight. There was a quiet arrogance in her posture, as if the world had always bowed for her — and she had never doubted it should. Her beauty was striking, the kind that felt curated rather than natural, and when she moved, she did so like a dancer accustomed to watching others stumble in her wake.

  Fran blinked. “Princess Nyvara.”

  Nyvara tilted her head. “Ah. So the duchess remembers.”

  Gale’s heart dropped. He had never met her before — not in court, not in any archive or audience — but he recognized the name, the voice, and the chill it brought.

  “I was traveling,” Nyvara said, sweeping past Fran without waiting for permission. “North. I heard someone had finally claimed this ruin. Naturally, I was curious.”

  Fran remained still. “It’s Elarion land. It has been for over two centuries.”

  “Yes, yes. Bought from the Crown and all that.” Nyvara waved a hand. “But still Velmoran soil, is it not? I don’t need permission to visit my homeland.”

  She paused in the entryway, surveying the hall like a seasoned predator inspecting new territory. “Charming. Much less haunted than I expected.”

  Fran said nothing. Behind her, Gale managed a tight nod. Nyvara’s eyes caught his — and stayed there a beat too long.

  “And you are?” she asked, voice smooth. “Ah, yes. This is your pet, Elarion. The duchess’ sorbet. Has he been keeping your sheets warm? Or is he just ornamental?”

  Gale’s jaw clenched. Fran didn’t flinch, but her voice sharpened. “He’s Gale Dekarios. Headmaster of Candlekeep’s Academy. Arcanist. My advisor.”

  “Ah,” Nyvara purred. “The prodigy of your generation. I’ve read your name in more footnotes than I care to admit. They said you were brilliant. I didn’t expect ‘brilliant’ to come with such a... polished collar.”

  She turned back to Fran with a smile. “I’ll take the guest room. And something to eat. Your cook smells competent — do offer him my compliments.”

  Fran’s fingers tightened around the doorframe.

  “That room’s been sealed for years,” she said evenly. “But if you’re truly set on staying—”

  “I am.”

  Nyvara’s gaze flicked once more to Gale, then to the faint candlelight still dancing behind him.

  “I do hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Her lips curved. “Well. Not too much.”

  She turned and began removing her gloves as she walked deeper into the house, her maid scurrying to catch up.

  Fran didn’t speak until Nyvara disappeared down the hallway. Then she exhaled, very slowly, and shut the door behind her.

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  Gale’s voice was low. “I was just about to—”

  “I know.”

  She stood there a moment longer, her back to him, fingers resting on the wood. Then she turned, face composed but eyes like fire.

  “Get the wine back in the cellar. I’ll handle the princess.”

  The air was warm and still as Fran led the princess upstairs, candlelight pooling against the old stone walls. Nyvara trailed behind, her boots echoing on the steps, her eyes taking in every detail — the faded tapestries, the worn banister, the absence of arcane comforts.

  “I must say,” she drawled, “this place has charm. In the way dead things often do.”

  Fran said nothing. At the end of the corridor, she opened the guest chamber.

  Nyvara stepped inside without acknowledgment, glanced around, and immediately began adjusting the pillows. “This will do. My maid will bring my trunks. Tell your staff to handle the silks with care.”

  “There is no staff,” Fran said, evenly. “You brought your own.”

  Nyvara paused, then shrugged. “So I did. No matter.”

  She wandered toward the wardrobe. “This used to be Lord Alric’s room, didn’t it? And before that—your parents’. I wonder if the ghosts approve.”

  Fran offered a thin, polite smile and stepped out without replying.

  She walked to the study at the end of the hall — the door still shut, undisturbed. Inside, the desk drawers remained full of sealed letters, some too fragile to touch, others bound in Alric’s familiar hand. She hadn’t had the time or strength to go through all of them yet. Whatever they contained, she didn’t want Nyvara seeing any of it.

  She locked the door and palmed the key.

  Across the corridor, she did the same for the nursery.

  Only then did she return to the master bedroom.

  The candles were lit, their golden light steady in the warm evening. Gale stood by the window, his back to the door. He’d changed out of his dinner clothes; the dark tunic he’d worn so carefully folded over a chair. In his hands, he held the ring — turning it slowly, absently, like a man weighing his next spell.

  “I was two breaths away,” he said without turning. “Two.”

  Fran shut the door behind her. “I know.”

  “She called me sorbet.”

  “I noticed.”

  “She called me ornamental.”

  “She noticed your hair. You really shouldn’t have combed it.”

  A strangled sound escaped him — half-laugh, half-growl. “You’re defending her?”

  “I’m defending you.”

  He turned at last. “Fran—”

  “Not now,” she said gently.

  Gale looked at her — at the quiet strength in her face, the storm she kept beneath her voice. For a moment, he seemed about to speak again. Instead, he slipped the ring back into his pocket, carefully.

  “We’ll find the right moment,” he muttered.

  “We always do,” she said.

  But neither of them sounded convinced.

  Nyvara made herself at home with all the grace of a conquering army. By the first morning, she had commandeered the library, splayed half-dressed across a chaise longue with her boots on the reading table, while her maid unpacked perfume vials and satins around her. “I’m told this estate once held rare tomes,” she said, flipping through a water-damaged volume without interest. “Now it mostly smells like mildew and despair. Charming.”

  She rose late, demanded tea strong enough to kill a man, and summoned Fran with all the authority of a queen—not that she ever addressed her by title. “Elarion,” she called from the drawing room, where she had ordered the windows open to 'air out the melancholy.' “Is the harpsichord locked away with the rest of the memories? Or did no one in your family ever bother to play?”

  Gale, upon hearing this, turned and left the room without a word. He spent the rest of the day in the orchard, pruning dead branches with unnecessary precision.

  That night, Nyvara insisted on dining with them. She arrived swathed in violet silk, hair coiled into an elaborate twist that made her look far too regal for roast duck and garden greens. She praised the wine, insulted the chairs, and called the house’s stonework “provincial in that quaint, doomed way.”

  “I must admit,” she said, spearing a slice of apple, “you’ve done wonders with so little. This house, this title. Even the sorbet. Tell me, Master Dekarios, is it true you once teleported a palace into the desert by mistake? Or is that merely a Kentari exaggeration?”

  Gale choked slightly. Fran pressed her lips into a line.

  “Oh, don’t pout,” Nyvara went on. “It’s rather endearing, your little rebellion. A duchess and her scholar. I can almost smell the parchment.”

  The second day was worse.

  Nyvara appeared in Fran’s borrowed riding cloak and claimed she wished to ‘see the grounds’—though she never made it past the hedgerow before complaining of insects, sun glare, and the general lack of entertainment. By noon, she had returned indoors and spent an hour tapping her nails against the dining table while loudly critiquing the color of the drapes.

  “She is going to die here,” Gale muttered to Fran in the corridor. “By accident. Or fire. Possibly both.”

  “Resist the impulse,” Fran murmured back. “For now.”

  But by that evening, even she was fraying. Nyvara had discovered the old portraits in the upstairs hall and stood admiring them with arms crossed.

  “Your mother was beautiful,” she said, not turning. “And your father looked exactly like the kind of man who would write too many letters and die for the wrong cause.”

  Fran didn’t answer. She simply closed the door behind her and didn’t return until long after the princess had gone to bed.