The flinch is more pronounced this time and her gray eyes dart around. She exhales.

“Better that than a traitor on the executioner’s block,” she says, her voice low.

The venom in the words feels like a slap and I struggle not to recoil from her. I swallow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Cress,” I say, but my voice shakes and I know it doesn’t fool her. No matter how she tries to pretend otherwise, Cress is no fool.

“Don’t insult me,” she says, leaning back in her chair. She reaches into her pocket and withdraws a folded piece of paper. The seal has been broken, but it once was a drakkon breathing fire. Søren’s sigil. The sight of it hollows my stomach, and a thousand excuses rise to my lips, but I already know there is no excuse for what is in that letter.

“Where did you get that?” I ask instead, as if I can somehow turn this on her, make her the one who betrayed me.

She ignores me, opening the letter slowly. Hurt flickers across her expression as she begins to read.

“ ‘Dear Thora.’ ” Her voice remains flat and emotionless. “ ‘I can’t find the words to express how happy your letter made me. I know that I didn’t say it so plainly in my last letter, though I’m sure you could have surmised as much, but my heart is yours as well.

“ ‘In your letter, you said that you wanted a way for us to be together without having to hide it. I want the same. I want to tell everyone; I want to brag about your letters the way my men brag about the letters their sweethearts send them; I want a world where there is a future for us that is not sneaking through dark tunnels (as enjoyable as that sneaking might be). But I think, more than anything else, I want to live in a better world than the one my father has created. I have hope that one day, when I am kaiser, I can create that world. And now I have hope that when I do, you’ll be at my side.’ ”

She looks back at me as she folds the letter again. “There’s more, of course. Bits about his ship’s activities, how the battle is going—painfully boring, really, though I’d imagine that’s the part you’re interested in.”

I can’t say anything, only watch as she tucks the letter away. It must have come recently. I’d assumed he’d been too busy in battle to write me back, but Cress must have found it under my doormat.

“It isn’t what you think,” I manage finally, though it’s ridiculous how untrue that is.

“I think you lied to me, Thora,” she says softly, but all traces of softness are gone from her expression. She is all hard angles and furious eyes. She looks, for the first time, like her father. “I think you stole my Spiritgems, which means you’re working with others. You wouldn’t have grown this rebellious on your own. Three, I would imagine, given how many of my pieces you took?”

Ice trickles down my spine and my heart thunders. She can’t know about my Shadows, not like this. I cast my eyes around and spot them off to the side of the sun pavilion, watching but too far away to hear anything. They’re still there, which means she hasn’t told anyone about her suspicions yet. I can’t let her.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, leaning forward. “I’m so sorry, Cress, but it isn’t what you think.”

“What I think is that it’s too convenient,” she says, pursing her lips. There’s a dangerous glint in her eyes that reminds me of her father. “These others that you’re working with show up and you get them Spiritgems and at the same time you decide to start romancing the Prinz. You have to know that a match between him and you would never be allowed, and you’re too smart to pretend otherwise. Which means you were aiming for something else.”

She glances back down at the letter in her hands.

“ ‘I misled you before, when I said we were leaving to solve some issues with Dragonsbane in the trade route, but if you’re truly so bored that you want to know what’s happening here, I’ll tell you.’ ”

She breaks off again and looks back up at me. There is no emotion in her eyes, which is just as well. My whole body is numb.

“You don’t care about whatever mission the Kaiser sent him on. I have a hard time believing you wanted to hear about it, but I suppose these people—whoever you’re working with—did, though, and they told you to seduce the Prinz to get as much information as you could for them. Am I wrong?” she asks, tilting her head to one side as she watches me.

Yes, I want to say. But not about what really matters.

She must take my silence for a no because she continues. “I understand it, Thora,” she says, her voice shifting to what I’m used to from her, gentle and kind. It reminds me of the way the Theyn spoke to me after he killed my mother, asking if I was hungry or thirsty while her blood was still wet on his hands. “I meant it when I said that your life is unfair. The way he treats you is unfair. But this isn’t the way to fix it.”

I want to scream that it isn’t about me at all, that the unfairness of my life is nothing compared to the miseries endured by the other Astreans in the city, the other Astreans in the mines, the other Astreans who fled to become third-class citizens in other countries.

I take a breath, force myself to hold her gaze instead of screaming the way I so badly want to. Because I am not her friend and I never have been. I am her pet and she loves me like I’m something less than her, and the realization of that feels like I drank the vial of Encatrio myself. Like I’m turning to ash from the inside out.

When I speak, my voice is soft and level. It is remorseful, despite the resentment coursing through me. “How do I fix it, then?” I ask her.

It’s exactly what she wants to hear. Her smile is genuine, relieved. She reaches across the table to take my hands in hers.

“You do what’s expected of you,” she says, as if it’s simple. To Cress, it is. She’s always done what is expected of her and she’s going to get a crown because of it. But we are not the same. We live in two different worlds, and different things are expected of us. “You give the Kaiser what he wants. You stay alive until I can save you.”

I swallow down the bile rising in my throat. She means well, which makes it so much worse.

“Will you tell the Kaiser?” I ask.

She draws her hands back and clears her throat. “I don’t see why he needs to know. You faltered, it’s to be expected. But no real harm has been done, has it?” she says, as if I broke a piece of china instead of plotted treason.

“No,” I say.

She nods, pressing her lips together thoughtfully. After a second, she gives me a smile, but it’s sharp enough to cut through steel.