Coris woke due to the paradoxical combination of not being able to breathe and wanting to sneeze at the same time. Something heavy was weighing onto his whole body. Simultaneously, a tantalizing, soft, warm breeze was blowing into his nostrils, bringing with it a faint scent of butter and sugar.

He opened his eyes, then almost propelled his head into the headboard in surprise. A pair of glowing green eyes stared unblinking at something over his head, an inch away from his eyes.

"Argh!" Coris yelled.

"Eek!" Meya (for it obviously was she) shrieked in tandem as she backpedaled off him onto the bed. Coris sprang upright, then fell back down to his pillow, a hand pinching his temples as if it could slow down his swimming brain. Once his world finally stood still, he opened his eyes and glowered at the young lass.

"What in the three lands were you doing? Trying to suffocate me?" He demanded. Meya jolted as she cowered, fretting with her hands as she squeaked.

"I'm so sorry, my liege. I cann't help myself. The beetle..."

"Beetle?"

The word had barely even left the tip of Coris's tongue when Meya's hand lunged straight at his head. With swift, surprisingly light fingers she plucked something from his fringe, then held it up for him to see.

A small, emerald-green ladybug with large, gleaming golden spots squirmed feebly with its minuscule red legs and antenna on Meya's thumb, pinned down by her index. Assuming he had taken a good enough look at it, she withdrew and let the wee thing crawl free into her palm, cupping her free hand over it to prevent it escaping too soon.

"He came in through the window then ended up on his back on the desk. I helped him up and he shot off again, but he couldn't find his way out."

She prattled on absentmindedly as she peered into her hand-cave. Her glowing green eyes followed the ladybug's journey across her palm, then glanced back up at him.

"He kept buzzing around the room until he landed on your head. Maybe because your hair smells of flowers?"

It took Coris a beat to gather himself; he had been just as mesmerized watching the lass as she had been watching the bug. His hand shot up to caress his hair, anxious.

"Possible. I use Hadrian Rose oil on it." He shrugged, contriving to seem unfettered.

Meya blinked in surprise, then rolled her eyes.

"Don't you Hadrian folk have any other flowers apart from the Hadrian Rose, my liege?" She griped as she edged off the bed. Coris sat up, his gaze following her willowy form receding towards the window.

"We do. It's just that Mother insist I massage my scalp with it because she's convinced I'm getting prematurely bald."

Meya turned back. Behind her, the ladybug buzzed from her outstretched hands away into the sunny spring day. Her shining eyes traveled from his down to his pillow, where numerous long strands of brown hair lay brittle and lifeless.

"Well, you do shed a lot of hair."

Coris's eyes narrowed in rue, his cheeks tinged with self-conscious pink, and Meya realized her misstep. Swiping up parchment from the desk, she scurried back to her balding fake-husband.

"I reckon you just have to eat more, my liege. Why, you look like you've just been through a famine."

She knelt down beside the bed, then smoothed the contracts on the bed before Coris who, though still moody and silent, slapped the bed for her to clamber up, which Meya obliged.

"Your hair needs more food. Fyr, every part of your body needs more food."

Meya's eyes pooled at the region below Coris's midriff. And she stifled a laugh with much difficulty as she added,

"Well, almost every."

Coris said nothing. Meya chanced a glance upwards, and found him grinning and shaking his head, back to his usual amicable self. Seeing his gaze drawn to the two copies of the contract laid out before him, Meya looked glumly at her signature at the bottom. Next to Coris's impeccable, ornate print, hers was a puppy's doodle.

"If it's too hideous, I'll rub it off and do it over."

Coris glanced up at her, and shook his head in disapproval.

"Meya, your true name is difficult even for clerks, yet you spelled it correctly in one night, with no prior education. You should be proud. You haven't yet met Penis Hadrian, aged three."

Coris picked up the contracts and examined them. Meya was left blinking for a beat, then she fell in to a heap of hysterical laughter. Coris chuckled in tandem.

"My fault entirely. I should've known better than to trust Klythe Crosset to teach me my letters."

Klythe Crosset. Arinel's missing brother.

Meya hiccupped to a halt at that name the Hadrians so often mentioned. Eyeing Coris, who was still scanning the contract as if looking for loopholes, she asked softly.

"You're close with Sir Klythe, Lord Coris?"

Coris's silvery eyes left the parchment to meet hers, and his grin faded; he had just remembered Klythe was no longer here to play more pranks on him. He stared straight ahead, his gaze unfocused, lost in tragic remembrance.

"He'd been living with us for as long as I can remember." He began, his fingers fidgeting with the margins of the parchment, now held loosely on his lap, "He was my father's squire, and Simon and Chris's mentor."

"Your mother said he disappeared not long after the Axel Heist?" Meya leaned closer, an eyebrow raised. Coris nodded in confirmation. "What happened?"

Coris didn't respond right away. He bit his lips, his fingers still on the contract tightened and twitched, sending small creases spreading out like cracks on glass. And Meya understood why when he finally spoke,

"I was sick in bed, trying to cough up The Axel that wasn't in my stomach."

Coris's voice was heavy yet void of emotion. His haunted eyes stared ahead. Meya reached over and squeezed his arm, but he rested his hand on her arm in return and swallowed hard.

"The last time I saw him was when he visited me, the day before Agnes died. The last time everyone else ever saw him, he was right by Father's side, then Father sent him away on an errand."

"Right after that, a fire broke out in Agnes's rooms. Only Persephia was there. Surrounded by flames and naked, unconscious but unharmed. Not a single burn. Agnes was nowhere to be found, dead or alive. When Persephia came to, she couldn't remember anything that had happened."

Coris's gaze zeroed in on her, piercing and foreboding. Meya blinked. There was one part of the story that Coris seemed to be particularly focused on. She narrowed her eyes.

"You're thinking of Gillian's escape? You think the Graye girls had a row, Persephia flew into a rage, called out her dragon and burned her sister to smithereens?"

Coris stared at her. There was an insinuating, almost desperate look in his eyes. Meya shrugged, pointing out the puzzling notion.

"But why were they naked? Do dragons have an aversion to clothes, or a fetish for naked human riders? So you must strip down before you can call them in? Do I have to be naked to summon my dragon soulmate, too?"

Meya jabbed her thumbs into her chest, glowing eyes bulging as she stared at her liege, incredulous. Coris avoided her gaze, falling silent as if in thought. Meya took the opening to move on with her argument, instead of pressing him further. A grave mistake, as it turned out much later.

"Or maybe it's got nothing to do with Greeneyes. Persephia might like being nude in private, or she'd just gotten out of a bath. I know folks back home who died naked on the loo."

Meya shrugged, then continued more seriously.

"Sir Klythe served your father. He might have set fire to Agnes's rooms. That must have been the errand the Baron sent him to do. That's why he fled. That's why he disappeared."

A tiny smirk of personal satisfaction twitched the corner of Meya's mouth. Only once her excitement had subsided did she notice the pain and sorrow in Coris's eyes, and her savage little grin slid off.

"Oh, Freda. I'm so sorry." She whispered as she rushed to his side. Coris closed his eyes, trying to tamp down his emotions. Finally, he heaved a sigh.

"A good strategist values unbiased opinion." He forced out his usual benign, melancholic smile, then looked away, "But even if Klythe actually did it, I don't blame him. I don't blame Father. They did what was in their nature, their duty, their logic."

Meya bit her lip, scolding herself. Gingerly, she reached out her hand, letting her fingertips caress the back of his icy hand. Coris didn't flinch away or bat her hand aside. He closed his eyes again, looking exhausted.

"It was just as you said. I made a choice. But I didn't think it through. I saved Zier, but I killed Agnes. Even when I should've seen it coming."

"You. Didn't. Kill. Agnes." Meya insisted, frustrated, almost pleading as she glared at those lifeless eyes, her hand squeezing Coris's.

"Your priority then was Zier. So you forgot about Agnes. It was just natural. It was the Baron who miscalculated. He killed an innocent twelve-year-old girl. He was the one that should be sorry, not you!"

A drop of moisture welled up at the corner of Coris's eye, and Meya slumped down beside him, eyes downcast. Her heart was in turmoil, but she was dismayed to find that deep within her guilt and sympathy for Coris, there was a knot of envy.

Would Coris ever cry for her like he did for Zier and Agnes?

Sweeping it under the figurative rug, Meya heaved a labored sigh and continued glumly.

"I knew I shouldn't have brought this up. I'm so sorry, my liege."

Coris's icy hand laid on hers still squeezing his, and Meya jolted.

"You don't have to be, Meya. We're working together. Anything you'd like to know, ask away. Even the smallest clue could turn out to be crucial."

Meya looked up to find Coris's gentle smile. He bowed, his voice dropping to a whisper,

"And, thank you, what you said really helped."

A wave of warmth engulfed Meya, and she blushed hard. She nodded and retracted her hand, trying to calm her erratic heart, then went on in a rush, taking Coris up on his offer.

"If Agnes wasn't in on the heist but your father had her killed anyway, why didn't Baron Graye do anything? He should've been outraged. He should've declared war."

Coris stretched his legs and leaned back against his pillow, hands clasped in his lap, eyes focused on her.

"It's a common strategy in warfare, Meya, to exploit the weak link and destroy the enemy from within. Father believed I was that link, when it was actually Zier that Baron Graye chose."

"After the Heist, I made sure Zier couldn't contact Graye. Graye couldn't have known what actually happened. Where the Axel was. Whether his and Zier's involvement was discovered yet. By whom."

"Then Agnes died in a fire, and Persephia became Father's hostage. When Father told Graye the fire was an accident, it was a test. A trap. Graye knew Father suspected Agnes, so he didn't challenge it. He accepted defeat, kept up his cover, brought Persephia back safe and sound, and wait for the chance to strike again."

Coris smiled, satisfied with his smart speech, as Meya felt a wave of both awe and fear sweep down her spine. Fyr, he made it look so effortless deciphering what was going on in the ruthless brains of them big cheeses. She'd love to see Coris in Logic class. He'd definitely demolish everyone else in Heist.

Coris studied her for a beat, dithering, then flipped over and reached towards the bedside cabinet, pulling open the topmost drawer. Meya craned her neck, following him as he extracted something from the drawer and turned back, laying it before Meya.

The loosely bundled purple silk handkerchief fell away to reveal broken shards of what must have once been a fist-sized, charcoal-gray clay ball. The pieces were dusted with some kind of fine, glinting black powder. Meya picked up a shard and turned it around, examining. The powder was oily to the touch.

"While Gillian took you to the ransom drop, an intruder tried to kill me and search my bowels for the Axel." Coris revealed. Meya looked up and gawked. The young lord picked up a shard of clay and shook it, redirecting her gaze back to it.

"She escaped using this smoke bomb. It was packed with black sand from the Graye River." Coris set the shard down to rejoin its friends, then looked back up, staring straight into Meya's eyes.

"Her eyes were the same color as yours. She was a Greeneye. She used a Lattis bracelet to hide it. I felt it when I grabbed her wrist." He pointed to his own wrist as he said so, then raised his eyebrow at Meya, "Was she one of Gillian's?"

It took Meya a moment to digest and accept it all. So there was another Greeneye apart from Gillian who was after The Axel? What exactly was up with this thingy small enough to be swallowed by a ten-year-old boy? What could it do apart from protecting people from poison?

Meya churned her lips, dredging up every detail of every bandit in Gillian's group from the depths of her memory, then shook her head resolutely.

"There weren't any women in Gillian's band. And those bandits used Lattis coins, not bracelets. Gillian made this for me."

Meya held up her Lattis coin, which she had kept in her pocket. The coin gleamed rainbow in the late morning light and reflected in Coris's silvery eyes. He nodded.

"Thank you. I needed to be sure." He averted his eyes, pensive. Meya narrowed her eyes.

"Of what?"

It would be a long, long time before Meya would get her closure; right at that moment, a shrill shriek echoed from the other side of the door.

As Meya jumped as if bitten in the bum and rushed to the door, tying the Lattis coin around her neck as she went, Coris shook his head with a sigh, then slid off the bed.

"Seems denial could blind even a dragon's eyes to the truth."

It was frustrating, and perplexing. He'd thought a girl courageous and intelligent enough to rescue a hostage from a dozen grown men driven demented by hunger, to negotiate with a band of Nostran dragon mercenaries at swordpoint, would have no trouble uncovering the truth about herself and her dwindling kind, and accepting it. He'd thought it wouldn't take much prodding from him for her to step up and take the mantle of saving them.

But it seems the possibility of herself being something magical, extraordinary, legendary and beautiful, something other than a nameless, faceless existence, or a monstrous abomination, had never crossed Meya's mind.

He had chided her for being too trusting. He should've realized that the person Meya least believed in was, in fact, herself.