The Festival of Almost-Dawn smelled of burnt sugar and regret.

  Virellia adjusted her mask—a gilded thing, carved with the smile she hadn’t worn since childhood—and scowled at the revelers around her. They drifted through the square like ghosts in reverse, their laughter too loud, their masks too bright. Themselves, but happier. The thought curdled in her stomach.

  “You look like someone pissed in your wine,” said a voice behind her.

  Jessa. Of course.

  Virellia didn’t turn. “And you look like you’re about to ask me for a favor. Hard pass.”

  The bard sidled into view, her own mask a sly exaggeration of her sharp features. “No favors. Just a challenge.” She jerked her chin toward the bonfire at the square’s center, where a crowd had begun to form. “Fire-dancing duel. Winner gets answers.”

  “Answers?”

  Jessa’s grin didn’t reach her eyes. “About the sigil you’ve been hiding under your sleeve.”

  Virellia’s pulse spiked. The mark—a twisted vine, branded into her wrist after the first time she’d dreamt of Sorin crowned in flames—itched beneath her glove. How did she—?

  Before she could demand an explanation, a child barreled into her legs, nearly toppling her. A boy, no older than six, his mask a crude sun with lopsided rays. He shoved a spiced pastry into her hand and bolted away, giggling.

  Jessa plucked the pastry from her fingers and took a bite. “Festival rules. You’re obligated to dance now.”

  “That’s not a rule.”

  “It is today.”

  The crowd roared as two performers spun torches overhead, their flames painting the air with temporary constellations. Virellia exhaled through her nose. Fine. If Jessa wanted a duel, she’d get one—and regret it.

  She stripped off her gloves, rolled her sleeves to the elbows, and strode toward the fire.

  The rules were simple: no weapons, no magic, just fire and flesh.

  Virellia went first.

  She snatched a torch from the bonfire’s edge and let the heat lick up her arms. The crowd’s murmurs faded as she spun, the flame arcing behind her like a comet’s tail. She’d learned these steps in the ember-lit courtyards of her childhood, where fire was a language and pain its punctuation. The dance was a story—here is the girl who ran, here is the woman who burned, here is the sister who stayed.

  When she finished, the square erupted in applause. Even Jessa looked grudgingly impressed.

  Then the bard stepped forward.

  Jessa’s dance was different—less precision, more chaos. She moved like a spark caught in the wind, her torch tracing jagged, unpredictable paths. But halfway through, something shifted. Her flames twisted. They curled inward, weaving themselves into a shape that made Virellia’s breath catch:

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  The Hollow King’s sigil. A cracked crown wreathed in thorns.

  The crowd gasped. Jessa’s eyes locked onto Virellia’s, wide with panic. I didn’t mean to, that look said. It wasn’t me.

  Then—

  A reflection in a nearby window blinked. Just one. Out of sync with the rest.

  Virellia’s skin prickled.

  The crowd’s applause died as a figure shouldered through the revelers—a fool in patchwork robes, his mask a grotesque rictus of joy.

  “You’ll laugh when it ends,” the Laughing Prophet whispered to Sorin, who’d appeared at the edge of the square, his golden scars dull in the firelight. “Not because it’s funny. Because you’ll finally understand the joke.”

  Sorin recoiled. “What joke?”

  The Prophet tilted his head, his mask’s painted tears glinting. “The one you started, king.”

  Before Sorin could respond, a child tugged at his sleeve. A girl, her mask a simple circle of polished wood. She held out a crown woven from willow branches, its surface rough with unfinished edges.

  “You dropped this, king,” she said.

  Silence.

  Then the festival bells tolled, their chimes out of rhythm with the distant temple’s.

  And every reflection in the city winked—once, twice—out of time.

  Sorin stared at the child’s outstretched hands. The makeshift crown looked absurd—twigs knotted with frayed twine, already unraveling. But his scars burned at the sight of it.

  “I’m not a king,” he said, too harshly.

  The girl tilted her head. Her mask had no eyeholes, yet he felt her gaze like a brand. “Not yet,” she agreed, and pressed the crown into his hands.

  It was shockingly heavy.

  A murmur rippled through the crowd. Virellia seized Sorin’s elbow, her nails biting through his sleeve. “We need to go. Now.”

  Jessa was already backing away, her face pale beneath her mask. “The Hounds—”

  “No.” Virellia’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Worse.”

  Above them, the festival lanterns flickered. For a heartbeat, their light stained the square the color of old blood—and in that light, the revelers’ masks changed. Smiles rotted into grimaces. Painted eyes wept black tears.

  Then the illusion passed.

  The Laughing Prophet chuckled, adjusting his own cracked mask. “Almost-dawn,” he mused. “The hour when masks slip.”

  Sorin’s grip tightened on the willow crown. A splinter pierced his thumb. He didn’t flinch.

  They fled to a nearby alley, where the festival’s din faded to a muffled roar. Jessa leaned against the wall, her breath ragged. “That sigil—I didn’t mean to make it. The fire just… answered.”

  Virellia yanked up her sleeve, revealing the vine-brand on her wrist. “This appeared after the first time I dreamt of him.” She jerked her chin at Sorin. “Crowned and bleeding.”

  Sorin’s stomach lurched. “You never told me.”

  “Would you have believed me?”

  No. He wouldn’t have.

  Jessa rubbed her arms, though the night was warm. “I’ve seen that sigil before. In a song about the Hollow King’s fall. The lyrics said it was a promise.”

  “What kind of promise?” Sorin asked.

  “The kind that breaks you.” A new voice.

  The Laughing Prophet stood at the alley’s mouth, his silhouette warped by the distant firelight. In his hands was a cup of wine—half spilled, half drunk. “A king, a bard, and a dreamer walk into a festival,” he said. “The joke is, they’ve done this before.”

  Sorin stepped forward. “What do you want?”

  “To watch.” The Prophet’s mask creaked as he smiled. “The best tragedies are the ones where the audience knows the ending before the players do.”

  Then he tossed the cup at Sorin’s feet. The wine splashed upward—but instead of staining the cobbles, it hung in the air, droplets glinting like tiny mirrors.

  In each one, Sorin saw a reflection:

  —A silver-haired woman pressing a dagger into his hands—

  —Kael, older and hollow-cheeked, wearing the Exiled One’s mask—

  —Himself, kneeling before a throne of bone, whispering, “I’m sorry”—

  The droplets fell. The visions shattered.

  The Prophet was gone.

  The festival bells tolled again. Slower this time, as if dragged through tar.

  Jessa exhaled shakily. “We need to find the others.”

  Virellia nodded, but her gaze was fixed on Sorin’s hands—on the willow crown, now shedding leaves like tears. “It’s starting again, isn’t it?”

  Sorin didn’t answer. The crown’s weight was unbearable.

  A child’s laughter echoed from the square. The girl with the wooden mask stood at the alley’s entrance, her head cocked. “Will you stay for the ending, king?”

  Behind her, the festival’s lights guttered out—one by one by one.