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It meant he hadn’t gotten his guards to hurt her yet.

“Ah.” Erik released my hand to face her fully. “And now the party is complete.”

My gaze flicked to Finbar, who I now realized had not been the one who requested Perla’s presence tonight. Nor had he been warning me about Holden dressing me up like a puppet. All along, he’d been referring to Erik.

Perla snapped out of her daze more quickly than I had, curtsying low. “Your Majesty. What a pleasant surprise.” She straightened, looking from Erik’s proprietary arm around my waist to the anxious flush still surely blooming across my chest. Her eyes met mine, and her neutral expression briefly hardened into something cool and resolute.

I am with you, that look seemed to say, just as I had said to her earlier tonight.

And I knew, undeniably, that despite the oath band around her wrist, Perla had not fed any of my secrets to the king.

“You look well, Lady Perla.” Erik dragged his gaze over her in cruel amusement. “I daresay the island air suits you. Tell me, General, has our subject made an attractive addition to your court?”

“She has been very agreeable indeed,” Holden said, and my hand twitched with the impulse to form a fist.

“And you, Lady Perla?” Erik pressed, clearly enjoying himself. “How have you been liking Banarrat?”

“It’s beautiful, Your Majesty. And my hosts have been very welcoming.”

Erik smiled, the expression too sharp to be considered kind. “Your mother will be glad to hear it. When I told her I would be visiting you, she said she hopes you are being treated exactly as well as you deserve.”

Perla flinched, and I did too. Because Perla’s mother had tried selling her off to Erik in marriage. And now she hadn’t merely disowned her; she actively wished for her suffering.

Shadows shifted outside with the sound of movement, and then the entrance opened for an onslaught of servers.

“Help yourself to refreshments, Your Majesty.” Finbar offered Erik a strained smile. “The feast is about to begin.”

As the hot components of our meal arrived—herbed pastries, tureens of stew, mounds of golden rice bejeweled with pomegranate seeds—our dinner companions busied themselves with seating arrangements, leaving me and Erik alone by the drinks table.

I turned, the compass seeming to burn against my skin. Erik hadn’t yet demanded it—hadn’t even acknowledged it. Because, to him, my surrender was inevitable. Why secure the compass now when a prolongation would make me frantic with the rising dread of having to hand it over?

I didn’t want him to be right. Yet my power felt slippery inside me, curling away from my efforts to fortify it. My fingers quivered as I reached for an iced lemonade decanter, and, seeing me tremble, Erik confidently seized the jug himself.

I flinched as his fingers brushed mine, but he only smiled down at me, his face haloed by the chandelier light.

“That was very well done,” he said quietly, the bustle behind us drowning his words. “I’d forgotten how lovely you are when you lie. And you are even lovelier, I find, when you are lying for me.” He poured a glass of lemonade, ice tinkling, and slid it toward me.

Was he this triumphant because of our reunion, or had he somehow already uncovered the potential locations of Saxon’s sword? Had he sent his soldiers to those locations tonight?

Were my companions walking into an ambush?

“I am not doing this for you,” I said through my teeth, my mind reeling with bloodied images of the people I had started to consider my friends.

“Hmm. For our Maiden of Melancholy, then.” Erik glanced over his shoulder toward Perla. There was something careless in the way he regarded her, as though she were a worn doll one tear away from outliving her usefulness to him. It was because he must have already leveraged her as we’d feared he would: to get himself onto this island. Now her only purpose was to keep me from fighting back.

And Erik could very well discard her once he deemed her role complete.

“Did she show you the bracelet I gifted her?” he asked while my stomach was still roiling. “She was quite put out about wearing it, but I told her it was an honor to be given jewelry by a monarch.” His gaze fell to where my left hand brushed the edge of the table, and I knew what had caught his attention: the absence of his engagement ring. His voice turned playful as he reached for my fingers. “A fact you need to be reminded of as well, it seems.”

My specter lashed out against my conscious release—a thick, solid tendril, whipping his hand away before he made contact.

He inhaled sharply, and my skin bristled with panic. But before I could consider how to shield Perla from the consequences of my outburst, Erik chuckled under his breath, seeming pleased.

“Much better, my love.” He reached over me, and I tensed. But he only took a decanter of whiskey from beside me and poured an amber stream into a tumbler. “By the night’s end, I might just incense you enough to earn a proper strike.”

There was something sincere in the teasing—a hint that he truly did want me to use my power as a weapon—and the notion had my specter shriveling once again as Erik knocked back the whiskey.

“It’s perfectly natural for partners to quarrel,” he said with a new, businesslike air. “But until you take your place as queen beside me, I remain your king. So this is what shall happen. We shall stay here long enough to humor our guests. We shall present to them the image of two powerful people very much in love. And then you and I shall board the ship back to Daradon. A few of my guards will remain to keep an eye on our friend until we arrive home—and if you refuse to board, if you use your power against me in earnest, if you attempt any form of rebellion . . .” He turned to lean back against the table, to look into my eyes as he finished, “They will make her pray for a swift death. Am I making myself clear?”