Bane alerted to two more seizures over the next fifteen hours. Asra did her best to keep injecting Ciaran with saline and to get him to consume small amounts of applesauce and ginger-water as often as she could. She debated many times injecting him with morphine as well, as she’d heard it used as a treatment for withdrawals, but she’d also heard of its own addictive properties. She didn’t want to replace one addiction with another.

On the morning of their fourth day in the fox city, Ciaran almost seemed like his usual self.

When Asra returned from raiding the cafeteria’s stocks of bland, mushy food, Ciaran sat upright in the bed, stroking Bane’s ear as the dog snoozed on his lap. His hands still quivered, and he had lost a noticeable amount of weight over the last few days, but he seemed alert and aware of his surroundings for the first time since they’d arrived. He flashed her a smile when he noticed her standing in the doorway, and Asra’s heart lifted.

“Is that mush for me?” Ciaran asked.

“Well, it was, but if you’re feeling better I should make you go get your own.”

He chuckled, then winced and held his side. “Oh, please don’t make jokes. Everything is so sore. Anyway, I’d be happy to get out of bed, but I’m afraid I’d get lost. I don’t even know where we are.”

“The fox city that Margot told us about.”

“Oh. Where is everybody?”

Asra shook her head. “I don’t know. There’s no sign of them anywhere. I tried looking for clues last night but I couldn’t find anything. It’s like everyone just vanished.”

Bane yawned and flopped his head onto Ciaran’s chest, and Ciaran switched to stroking his head instead of his ears.

“You don’t think Nolan has something to do with it, do you?” he asked.

Asra frowned. That was an unpleasant thought.

“Wait,” Ciaran said. “There’s no hospital staff? Did you take care of me all by yourself?”

Asra nodded.

“Are you … a doctor?” Ciaran asked.

“No,” Asra said. “Well, not legally. But …” She pursed her lips, then continued, “Well, the last few years I’ve had a lot of free time in between trying to kill Nolan. And I didn’t want that time to go to waste. So I started sitting outside of the medical university in Windemere City and eavesdropping on the lectures. It’s a lot easier when you have my sense of hearing, especially in the summer when they keep the windows open. I also went to the library to read the assigned texts and …”

She scratched her neck. It sounded a bit silly out loud.

Ciaran regarded her with a horrified expression, then leaned his head back on the pillows with a sigh. “Just when I think you can’t get any more terrifying, I find out you read medical textbooks for fun.”

Asra tossed the prepackaged applesauce onto Ciaran’s lap and slouched back in the chair.

“Well, lucky for you I’m so terrifying, huh?” she said. “Otherwise you’d be dead now. Anyway, Bane helped. He let me know before you were going to have a seizure.”

Ciaran’s face grew dark. “How many did I have?”

“Four, altogether.”

Ciaran sighed again. “Gods, I’m sorry. It was never this bad any of the other times.”

“Other times?” Asra said, lifting her head off the chair.

He smiled bitterly. “This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to quit drinking. The previous attempts were nasty, but … it’s never caused seizures before.”

“It gets worse every time you go through withdrawals. Next time could kill you.”

“Maybe I’d deserve that.”

He screwed up his face the instant the words were out of his mouth, regret lined in every wrinkle.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean that. I just … Gods, that sounded ungrateful, didn’t it?”

He scratched Bane’s chest, then took a deep breath and continued.

“I’ve been struggling with this for a very long time. Since I was fourteen. I … Well now I’m curious, since you’ve admitted to spying on my family. What have you heard of my parents’ deaths?”

Asra shrugged. “Your dad shot your mom then himself, right?”

Ciaran snorted before he said, “You don’t know how to sugar coat anything, do you? But I suppose Nolan would be happy that the official story is the most prominent.”

He sighed and took a moment before continuing, “I was there when my father killed my mother. He … hurt my mother a lot. And Nolan. Nolan did his best to hide it from me, to make sure I never saw. But even as a little boy I knew something was wrong. My very first memory is of Nolan playing with me in the garden while our mother screamed and begged my father for …”

His voice caught, and Asra could hear his heart pounding in his chest. Ciaran took a few deep breaths before he continued.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been a while since I’ve discussed this while sober.”

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Asra thought of her parents’ bickering behind closed doors, when they thought she couldn’t hear them. That had been troubling enough, and they’d never hurt each other, or her or her siblings. And even if they had, the rest of the town would have sorted them out.

Ciaran’s father was king. There wasn’t anything that anyone else could have done to stop him. Yet another reason to despise the monarchy.

“There were so many times Nolan would have bruises that he couldn’t explain when I asked,” Ciaran continued. “I think … I think he took a lot of the brunt of attacks that were intended for me, too. If I did something to upset Father, Nolan would take credit for it, or do something to draw his ire instead.”

Asra felt a momentary pang of sympathy for Nolan, then forced it away.

“One night,” Ciaran said, “it got uglier than usual, and my father shot my mother. Nolan and I were playing in the next room. We ran in and tried to help her, but it was too late. Father aimed the gun at me and … I think he always saw me as too weak. Too much like Mother. Nolan and Father fought over the gun, and eventually Nolan shot him. And I … couldn’t do anything but watch.”

Bane shifted in his sleep, and Ciaran scratched the dog behind the ear.

“I had horrible nightmares all the time,” Ciaran said. “Nolan tried to be there for me as much as he could, but he had a kingdom to run. I was fourteen the first time I snuck some cooking brandy out of the kitchens. Just enough to help me sleep. And then as I got older, it became just at parties, then just with friends, then just in the evenings and on weekends. Most of my arguments with Vincent revolved around my drinking. I tried to dry out a few times—usually as a desperate bid to get Vincent to come back—but it never stuck.”

He took a deep breath. “And then the kennels burned, and I couldn’t stand life sober.”

Asra watched him quietly. She pictured a life in which she may have turned to alcohol to escape her nightmares all too easily. There had been many lonely nights she’d drunk herself numb, especially in her first year in the city. The only reason she kept it under control was because tracking down and killing her targets required sobriety.

“That’s not your fault,” Asra said. “You were sick. Mentally. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“That’s …” Ciaran laughed. “That’s shockingly kind of you to say. Most people don’t see it that way. It’s a moral failing to them. A weakness.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “Asra, I … I never hurt you, did I? There’s so much of my life that I can’t remember now.”

Asra picked at a smudge of dirt on her blouse for a moment, considering her next words carefully. “No, but … I think you hurt that man in the alley. During the riot. Maybe not physically, but …” She shrugged.

“Gods, poor Thomson,” Ciaran said, rubbing his face with one hand. “I don’t know what came over me. I mean, I do. I was drunk.” He inhaled sharply. “Damn it, what if he’s right about me, Asra? What if I am just like my father? What if it’s really in my blood, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it?”

Asra furrowed her brow. “You’re not.”

Ciaran laughed bitterly. “How do you know?”

“Because bad people don’t waste time worrying about whether they’re bad or not.”

Ciaran stared at her for a moment, then he smiled and looked down at Bane, stroking the dog’s head.

“You must be right,” he said. “I can’t be all bad if I’ve convinced you to like me.”

“I never said I liked you.”

“I know. You never say what you’re really thinking out loud. Not about this sort of thing, anyway.”

Asra only responded with a scoff, then changed the subject. “No offense, but … if you’ve never been able to quit before, what makes this time different?”

Ciaran looked at her with a determination she’d never seen from him. “Because I’m tired of it ruling my life. Because I want to be a good leader, and a good king. Because this time I’m not doing it for Vincent, or Nolan. I’m doing it for myself.”

Asra nodded, and Ciaran looked back to Bane as he stroked the dog’s head, suddenly much more subdued than before.

“Ciaran, are you sure you’re ready? To be king? To kill Nolan?”

He plastered a carefree smile on his face, but Asra saw through it. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Asra focused on Bane’s chest slowly rising and falling. “Every time you talk about Nolan, you … ” She shook her head. “You sound like you love him.”

Ciaran shrugged, still forcing an air of nonchalance. “He’s my brother. Of course I love him.”

“Ciaran, I … ” She took a deep breath, choosing her words carefully. “I need you to understand. My home comes before everything else. I will do whatever it takes to protect it, no matter who or what gets in the way.”

Ciaran watched her for a moment, his eyes searching her own. Asra thought of the little boy she’d first met in the palace eighteen years ago. When she left that night, she thought she’d never see him again. Now she didn’t know how she was going to bring herself to say goodbye to him.

“I understand,” he said finally.

They fell into silence. As usual, Ciaran was the first to break it.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” he said. “For saving Bane. For saving me.” He smiled. “Hell, you even saved Vincent for me.”

Asra scrunched up her brow. “What are you talking about? I wasn’t saving Vincent. I just didn’t want to risk Bane’s bite making him a convert.”

Ciaran’s eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. “Oh, shit.”

“You mean … you didn’t realize that? That’s not why you asked me to heal him?” Asra leaned her head back and groaned. “You’re too damn soft for your own good.”

Ciaran laughed. “Well, that’s why I keep you around, isn’t it? You’re strong enough for both of us.”

Asra lifted her head to meet his gaze. There was a gentle sincerity in his expression, and she thought she saw a little color return to his cheeks.

He was wrong about that. Asra hadn’t been strong enough for both of them at several points during the journey. Ciaran had picked up her slack there in ways she never would have expected from the prince.

“I still can’t believe you killed a dragon,” Ciaran said, his smile wide. “And those water horses!”

Asra shrugged, unable to hide her smile completely. “We never would have made it out if you hadn’t pointed out the mud on the side of the river. I’m still impressed with how you dispatched that boar.”

“Impressed? Really?”

Asra shrugged again, trying to look blasé to temper the compliment. “Well, you know. For a spoiled prince it wasn’t that bad.”

“You should have seen yourself during that hunt,” he said with a wicked grin. “Your tail was wagging. It was adorable.”

Asra scoffed. “I should have let the dragon eat you.”

Ciaran laughed, then he reached out and took her hand and said, “Turns out we make a pretty good team, don’t we?”

Asra felt heat rise to her cheeks. Images of their near kiss in the woods flashed through her mind, and she promptly forced them away. Regardless of either of their feelings, eliminating Nolan and protecting her home came first.

She didn’t want to think about why her thoughts of home now included Ciaran.