It had been the second week of his new life working the docks and he’d been recognized. Sold out. One of the J’Edaeii who’d also been working there had slipped and showed his hand, used magick to lift a heavy crate. Stupid. Anatol had used illusion to cover the gaffe. Instead of making a show of solidarity, the man he’d helped had thrown Anatol to the wolves for the reward, and the wolves had been only too eager to tear into his flesh.

No good deed ever went unpunished.

They’d taken his jewel, scooped with a rusty spoon from the flesh at the back of his neck. They’d taken a clump of his hair along with it.

He moved his hand, fingers dragging across the gritty floor of the cell. He touched straw and the scent of it filled his nose—moldy and sharp with the smell of other people’s unwashed bodies. His head ached and his throat burned for lack of water. Pushing himself over on his back, he groaned. His chest burned with pain, as though on fire.

“I know you,” came a broken voice somewhere near his left. A man. Cultured tones. A nobleman, maybe.

It took a minute for Anatol to move his head around far enough to peer into the shadowed corner where the voice had come from. It looked like a heap of rags sitting there, face cloaked by grime, a beard, and shadows.

The heap shifted a little. “I know you. The hair and eyes. Black and blue. Striking. I recognize you. They took your jewel. Your neck is bleeding.”

His neck was bleeding, but since pretty much everywhere else on his body was also bleeding, he hadn’t paid it much mind.

“So, you recognize me.” Anatol gave a tired groan. “So what.” He closed his eyes. Saw an image of Evangeline. The only thing he could be thankful for now was that she was safe. He didn’t know how things would turn out for her, but she had a chance. His heart squeezed at the thought of never touching her again, not being able to watch the beautiful transformation she was beginning to undergo. If she made it through, Evangeline would be a sight to see—crystal and steel and the softest velvet.

Loss opened in him like a chasm, darkness sucking him down into a spiral of despair.

“You’re Jeweled. I was with one in my room when the palace was stormed. Lithe little light-haired one, cold bitch with a hot body just asking to be fucked. I can’t remember her name. She’s probably dead now.”

No, this was not a nobleman. This was royalty. Anatol’s eyes opened. “You’re Roane.”

Nothing.

Anatol closed his eyes again.

Roane’s voice came from the shadows. “I’m dead.”

Sometime near dawn Anatol was awoken by the sound of the iron door whining open on rusty hinges. It clanged and Anatol roused, looking down the length of his body to two men coming toward him. They grabbed his arms and legs and dragged him toward the door, grunting under his weight.

Anatol twisted around, grunting at the agony in his chest, and peered into the shadow of the cell to search for Roane. It was empty. There was no trace that anyone had ever been there. He wasn’t sure if he’d hallucinated the encounter the night before or if they’d come and taken the royal out while he’d been sleeping.

“Off to the Lady for you.” One of the men carrying him spat on the floor as they entered the corridor. “Morning crowd needs a bit of amusement. May Joshui have mercy on your soul.”

Anatol had already figured that’s where they were taking him. He watched the ceiling of Belai’s dungeon pass by, rusted and water-spotted. The heels of his boots dragged on the stone floor of the corridor. To either side of him were cells filled with moaning, desperate people, their grimy fingers reaching past the bars.

The cold air of early morning rushed through him and the sounds of the crowd filled his ears—the shuffling, sighing anticipation of another day of seeing what they believed was the fruition of their dreams—the exultation of the people over power.

They were so deluded.

His body sagged as they deposited him on the icy ground. Cold water seeped into his clothing, numbing his skin. Above him rose the wood and steel contraption that would bite his head off.

He closed his eyes. Evangeline.

Blessed Joshui, he hoped she wasn’t watching. God, he just hoped she wasn’t going to see him die. He hoped she was far from here, fled back to Cherkhasii Province to find her family. Or perhaps gone to seek shelter at the Temple of Dreams. He hoped she was anywhere but here.

He wished her well.

Wished her the best.

He wished he’d had more time to love her. He wished he’d been able to show her she was capable of loving back with a full and open heart, without fear of loss. It was in her and someone would be lucky enough to bring it out of her. Someone would be honored to show her that she was worthy of adoration.

But it wouldn’t be him.

That truth was worse than the hands that pulled him upward and set him on the slab of wood frozen with the dark brown blood of those who had come before. It was worse than the kiss of the cold blade as they set it to his neck, making sure he was positioned correctly so that it would sever his neck and not stick into his shoulders or head. Worse than the tacky blood of the recently dead against his cheek, or the sight of the decapitated heads resting on the badly cleared snow of the steps below him.

Anatol closed his eyes and called his magick.

It rose up from his depths, blowing away the grief and fear that clung to him. It bubbled out of him like a fountain turning into a gusher. His back arched, his chest screaming in pain, and he yelled out—a hoarse, guttural sound that grated the frigid air.

He wove a spell around them all.

A forest, dark and deep, tangled with vines and tree limbs. Shadows slipping and churning in the ground beneath their feet. Low growls of savage animals echoing through the foliage. His power filled the air all around the perimeter of Belai, immersing all the viewers in the illusory depiction of the wild tangle of emotion that clawed at his heart and mind.

The people gasped and screamed. Some ran, only to bump into one another or collide with the iron fence that separated them from the palace courtyard. They jostled one another. Fights broke out. The guards surrounding Anatol backed away into vines that coiled down from tree limbs, grabbing at arms and legs and pulling them screaming into darkness.

Straining, body on fire from the pain of his wounds, magick hammering out from every pore of his body and burning him up, Anatol contracted his stomach muscles and rolled off the blood-soaked slab of wood. He hit the cold ground with a hard thump, shoulder and chest exploding with pain and making him grimace. His magick never flickered. Chaos reigned.

Above him the guillotine came down with a silvery thwack, blade embedding where his tender throat had just rested.

“Enough!” roared a man from about ten feet away. “Be calm!”

The man’s voice broke through Anatol’s magick, made him lose his grip. It was the voice of command—heavy and low. The people stilled, watching the man—awarding him with respect. The bustling about him stilled. The shouting and murmuring quieted.

Anatol’s magick slipped from his lax metaphysical fingers—spent. He rested his head against the ground and breathed out a long breath, and then closed his eyes.

“It ends now!” the man roared.

Silence.

Stillness.

Boots crunched on the ice and snow-crusted pavement. The man—Gregorio Vikhin, Anatol had no doubt—walked up and down in front of the gate like a schoolteacher reprimanding his class. If only it were so innocuous.

“You have had your victory.” Each word was loud, punctuated in the chilly air. “You have prevailed over your masters and thrown off their yoke.” He threw an arm up to encompass Belai. “You now rule the ruins of their short-sightedness and ineptitude. You now have the power.”

A cry went up, but died back down after a few moments.

Anatol forced his eyelids open, feeling the faintest stirring of magick affecting him. It roused in him a sense of respect and hopefulness, pride, and the desire to do the best, most noble thing he could. Emotional magick. Evangeline’s magick.

“Now it is time to harness that power. It is time to take this new world in hand and make something new, something better, something different, something that honors you.” Vikhin swept his arm down to show Anatol lying on his side. “To take the broken and make it whole. It is time to leave the bloodshed behind, my friends, the brutality and the violence. It is time to take the higher path, to create a state that honors us and is worthy of us all!”

A ripping roar of approval that hurt Anatol’s ears rang out through the air.

“No more bloodshed! Time for positive action!” Gregorio pumped his fist into the air. “No more bloodshed! Time for positive action! No more bloodshed! Time for positive action!”

The crowd took up the chant and Gregorio ran in front of the gate, fist pumping, driving the energy of the people higher—in a new direction.

Several of the guards, impassioned by Gregorio’s speech and Evangeline’s magick, took axes to the guillotine. Wood rained down on Anatol, hitting his head. The men who had brought him out to the steps came toward him, intending, perhaps, to throw him back into the dungeon. It appeared his neck had been saved from the blade for the moment, but Anatol was sure a darker, quieter death awaited him back between the walls of the prison.

Gregorio caught sight of him and walked over, holding up a hand. “No, no. This one comes with me. He’s shown an exceptional amount of spirit and I want to talk to him.”

The men hesitated, hands gripping Anatol’s arms and legs.

Gregorio Vikhin straightened and locked his jaw.

The men dropped Anatol and moved away.

Watching him closely, Anatol noticed Gregorio release a pent-up breath. Then he leaned down and helped Anatol to his feet. “Can you walk?”

Anatol grunted and mumbled through his swollen lips, “Just get me out of here.”

Anatol wasn’t a small man by any measure—but Gregorio was even bigger. He half carried him and Anatol half dragged himself to an opening at the back of the palace courtyard. There Lilya and Evangeline waited for him.

Evangeline had her hand over her mouth, her eyes a riot of emotion like he’d never seen in them before. She ran over to him and braced his other side. Suddenly every hurt in his body ebbed away to warmth. That was the power of her touch. “Blessed Joshui,” she breathed into the crook of his neck.

“Get him to the Temple of Dreams. I’ve got work to do here.” Gregorio strode away.

He had three broken ribs, multiple deep lacerations from a whipping, two black eyes, a split lip, and a concussion. No broken limbs. That was a miracle. Now he was bandaged and had been giving a sleeping draught. He needed rest to heal.

She pressed her hand to her mouth, hating the way her insides heaved every time she looked at him and thought about how close she’d been to seeing that blade come down on his neck. Watching it almost happen had killed a part of her; she couldn’t imagine what it would have been like if it had truly occurred.

The feelings she had for Anatol were deep and terrifying. She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. Not since she’d been a child. She actually cared if he lived or died, and if he died . . . she couldn’t even think about the possibility. The idea dredged up the remnants of thick, sludgelike grief from the bottom of her soul. It was from her childhood, locked away in a part of her mind she couldn’t open.

She’d felt like a child as well, watching Anatol almost die as she clung to the gate in front of the palace, stomach heaving with emotion. Her magick had taken in the swell of the crowd. She would have used her ability to turn things in Anatol’s favor, but there hadn’t been enough of any opposite emotion to feed back into them and turn their sentiment in another direction. There had only been anger and bloodthirsty vengeance. When Anatol had cast his illusions there had only been fear and confusion—not usable. There’d been no positive feelings at all.

At least, not until Gregorio had begun to speak.

Then pride and elation—hope—had begun to filter into her awareness in drips and drabs from the people. Knowing she was taking a risk, but unable to stop herself, she’d siphoned off as much of that positive feeling as she could and fed it back to them—spawning more and more—until the emotional tide of the crowd had turned in Gregorio’s favor.

And Anatol had been saved.

Footsteps sounded behind her and a warm, strong presence pressed at her side. “Thank you,” she whispered, her gaze still on Anatol’s form in the bed.

“I think I should be the one to thank you. I know what you did this morning with your magick. You risked your life.”

She looked at him. Gregorio would never be called a handsome man, but there was something so very compelling in his brutal face. His eyes were fathomless, full of such intelligence and depth. His gaze rested on Anatol.

She looked back at the bed. “I did it for him.”

“I know you did, but that doesn’t change the fact that what you did . . . worked. Helped me and that helped Anatol. You did a good thing today. You may have aided me in gaining the foothold in the people’s psyche that I needed.”

“Your words.” She swallowed hard. “Your ideas. That’s what they need. That’s what they’ll follow. My magick is just a parlor trick, like Anatol’s illusion. It fades fast and leaves nothing of substance behind.”

He shook his head. “The emotion you engineered in them will fade, but people remember an event that’s been paired with such a great emotional response. I need you.”

She looked up at him. “What?”

He pushed a hand through his hair. “I need you both. I need your perspective and maybe your magick.”

Frowning, she shook her head. Ambivalence came off Gregorio in waves. “What are you saying? I wouldn’t feel right about manipulating people’s emotions.” She paused, thinking about what she’d just done at Belai and about the rapist in the alley. “At least I wouldn’t feel right about it in most situations.”

“I don’t mean that I want you to stand in the back of the room and throw magick whenever I speak. That wouldn’t be right.” He paused for a moment as if he couldn’t think of what to say. “Come to stay with me. You’re in danger on your own and I can protect you. In return you can help me, consult with me on the path I now have to walk.”

She bit her lower lip, contemplating the irony of the situation. This man, Gregorio Vikhin, was the one responsible for all their current woes. They were supposed to help him? Everything about this felt wrong. Frightening.

She pushed past him to leave, shaking her head. “No, we don’t owe you anything.”

“Yes, but I owe you something.”

“No. You saved Anatol’s life today. Let’s call it even. We’re done with you now.” She walked toward the door.

“Evangeline.” Anatol’s broken voice stopped her a step away from the threshold.

She turned and went to his side. He stared up at her through an eye that was half swollen shut. Gregorio went to the other side of the bed. “Swallow your pride. We need to take him up on his offer.” His words came haltingly.

“Why?”

Anatol swallowed hard. “Revolutionaries know my face. We need to hide. Need protection.”

“But—”

“Evangeline, please. For once . . . don’t fight me.”

Evangeline looked up at Gregorio, who regarded her with a guarded expression. “I’ll agree if that’s what you want, Anatol.” She paused. “At least, for now.”

Anatol grimaced a little, closed his eyes, and appeared to relax.

She glared at Gregorio and stormed out of the room. He caught her with one of his massive hands before she could leave and she shot him a look that could kill.

“I’m not the enemy,” he growled into her face.

She shook him off. “Yes, you are.”