Luka could hear the music blaring from inside the ballroom even as he crept through the servants’ corridors on the opposite side of the palace. Cassian, the big brute, would be inside the ball by now, possibly even already speaking to the heir of the throne of Vostoka. And, if all went according to plan, they would be sick and bedridden before long.

“You think he got lost on the way to the ballroom?” Larissa whispers, her body pressed so close to Luka’s that he can feel her breath brush his ear.

“With the volume of that music, it’s impossible to lose it.” Luka pauses as they finally reach the door they’ve been searching for; the heir’s chambers. Slowly—so slowly he can hear the fabric of his royal physician disguise rustling—Luka cracks open the door and peers inside. Once he’s confirmed it really is the heir’s room, he shuts the door and settles down on the floor of the corridor with Larissa. They would be here a while, waiting for your knight to call for a physician when he realizes your critical condition.

The corridor was pitch black, and Luka’s only sign that Larissa was still here with him was the sound of her breath rising and falling. He leaned into her instinctively, as had become a habit of his since she took on the role of caring for him. The rebel group was harsh, especially for a thirteen-year-old, but Larissa had always been the warmth he needed, a strange sort of mother figure that he had never had before.

They sat there for nearly half an hour before they heard voices in the other room. Luka had never heard the voice of the heir before, but he could immediately tell it was them. The whiny, complaining tone could hardly belong to anyone else. And their knight was there with them, ordering Their Highness to lie down, and reassuring them that he would call for a physician, and everything would be fine.

Luka stands as the bell rings in the corridor for a physician. Casting one look back at Larissa, he opens the door and enters the heir’s chambers.

The heir’s knight—Castor, he had heard them call him—is quick to greet him, his face stern and vaguely worried. “They’ve been poisoned. They’re…they’re acting drunk. Just do what you can, and don’t let anyone else know about this.”

His lips press together, and he casts one last look at the heir, who is lying on their bed and grumbling about nothing, before leaving the room.

So Luka is left alone with the heir. He doesn’t mean to move closer, but it’s almost as if his legs are moving on their own. He steps up to the bed and stares down at the bratty, spoiled, arrogant heir to a throne that meant nothing. Their face is pale, their cheeks are flushed, and they’re staring up at him with some difficulty now that the poison is making their vision swirl. He had come this entire way knowing that he hated them, but now, for some odd reason, he falters. Seeing Their Highness in person for the first time, he realizes just how…normal they are. How young. They can’t be much younger than him, and they look incredibly confused.