The nearest neighbors to the continent of Visava were the Rhiannon continent (the High Kingdom, with the area Tsarina and Tsar), with the continent across the Oceanus being the source of much trade; the Eastern Empire and their corresponding protectorates; and the Galbraith continent further northwest of the Rhianites.

  At least, that’s what Margaret’s read.

  But nowhere in the world has she expected this.

  A God visiting her in her dreams, and telling her she’s been gifted an Ability.

  No.

  I’m delusional.

  Margaret runs immediately to the Institute.

  Pale isn’t there.

  The girl opts for the Carnival instead, begging to meet her friend. She’s kicked and beaten, but she’s desperate. Red fills every gap in her vision, pain crushing her bones and every part of her skin, but still Margaret yells.

  You are ever so close to insanity, Greta, Dionysus had crooned. Do you feel the possessiveness you feel over your little friend? Do you feel all that pain you drink, as you step onto the world? Do you—

  Shut up, she tells the memory.

  Margaret can take a beating.

  She knows pain.

  The Carnival’s enforcers taunt her, but the threats ring empty in her ears (her ears are ringing, too; it’s hilarious). They kick her to the ground, but her arms are coiled over her head.

  Does she really know insanity?

  Does the God speak true?

  Is this emptiness called insanity?

  No, it is not, Margaret tells herself. It cannot be.

  She is not insane.

  Pale recovers her, after a while, and scolds her while bandaging Margaret’s wounds. But there is a fear in her eyes and not of her, of the Carnival. She is afraid, now. Good, something vindictive whispers inside Margaret. She will heed our warnings, now.

  But at what cost?

  Cost.

  It is a strange thing.

  At what cost?

  She hears it when the Fishers sell their produce in the marketplace, when she’s scouring for an eye to slip off a fish. At what cost? She deprives a family of a meal, to fill her own stomach. At what cost? She steals and tricks, depriving others of truth. At what cost?

  At what cost does she survive?

  “Pale,” she says, something invisible pulling at her lips, “I think the Universe is collecting its toll.” Margaret feels the blood flecking her teeth, the pain still there, sharp and alive. “I have to pay,” she repeats. She’s delirious, a haze flooding her mind, but it’s there. The desire. “The world has to pay.”

  Pale looks at her, for once something unreadable in her eyes.

  “Yes,” Margaret’s first and only love says, simply. “Someone always has to pay.”

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  When Margaret tells Pale, the girl’s reaction is unexpected.

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  “Try it on me,” the former Seven says, gesturing to herself. “Try it out. See if you’re really Chosen.”

  Margaret’s eyes immediately widen. “That sounds like an immediate no,” the other spits, and then winces. Her bones hurt, pain spangling her body with pinpricks like a deft Physician’s needles. “Did you hear what Dionysus said?” she asks. “He—”

  “I didn’t,” Pale informs her, uncharacteristically dryly.

  Margaret shoots her friend a look at the interruption. “He said that if I could use the Ability to make others go insane, I’ll go insane. And I — I don’t want to believe this, and there’s no other way, but what if — it’s just a dream, Pale.”

  She sighs.

  “Let’s just go home.” Margaret tugs on her friend’s hand, and winces again when her bloodied knuckles spark. “Please,” she pleads — she’s desperate. “Let’s just go home. We can go on the roof again, and Ten can be mean to us again. The Carnival— it isn’t safe, Pale. I’m worried.”

  Pale shakes her head, almost sadly. “I told you,” she tells Margaret. “Someone always has to pay.”

  “That isn’t a good enough reason, Pale!” the other raises her voice, a snap brimming in her throat, before she sees Pale flinch.

  Oh.

  Margaret closes her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she manages to croak out. “Just—”

  A boy immediately bursts in, alone. “Pallia!” he snarls.

  Pallia?

  “Pallia, I told you not to let your friends come here! It’s not safe!” he yells, angrily. “Father is displeased.”

  Pale flinches, again. “I’m sorry, Jason,” she apologizes, quietly. “I’ll be sure to schedule some extra...appointments for him. He—”

  Appointments.

  Jason snorts. “See, you’re lucky I like you,” he sneers, angrier. “That’s why I managed to get you a discount for your Institute’s debt. It’s only halfway paid — not that you’ll manage to get it all after Father’s done with you.”

  Something slams into Margaret’s head.

  It was rage.

  Appointments. Debts.

  Margaret is angry.

  This was what Pale was talking about.

  Almost immediately, something detaches her soul, and she floats, a spectator. Instead of seeing a boy, she sees a sphere — a glowing one, dancing with dark, grey light. When Margaret turns to Pale, she sees a bright yellow orb.

  You can break people’s minds, had said the God. A lingering hunger had filled his eyes, the God of Wine, Revelry, and Madness. You can Push them, ever so lightly, off the cliff that some call insanity. But, he had said, you will edge closer to the edge yourself. That is the Sacrifice you must give.

  Sacrifice.

  She giggles.

  A Price.

  But still, Margaret does exactly what the Ability is meant for: she sees the grey orb, Jason's mind. And she shatters it.

  That's when the screaming starts.

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  When she comes back from the Cage, Pale is dead. The Institute has been razed to the ground by the Carnival, and she enters the Palace. Greta begins to dream.

  Dionysus never visits, but what can she expect of the God of Insanity?

  She first meets a peacock emperor. He is kind in the way that the distant shore is— yet he still does not talk of payment. He does not talk about debt in the way most do, he does not expect anything from her; yet, she becomes what he cannot. He speaks of the past, and she dreams of the future.

  But the world must pay.

  Greta knows that.

  She must pay her debt to the world by fixing it.

  Five years pass, and Greta lingers in wealth, power, and fame. They do not talk about it, the Analysts — they do not tell of how it gets to you; of how ‘having everything’ makes people forget memories by putting them on a pedestal where the past is out of sight.

  She meets an amber-eyed hunter. They bicker, they fight, and they most certainly are not the best of friends, but they are family.

  And then she remembers.

  Another comes, a revenge-obsessed exile who can control lightning. This one acts on his desire for vengeance, he collects people and brings them to his side.

  But why?

  Greta remembers.

  She begins, soon after.

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  It starts with visiting the right people. Making promises that are easy to deliver on, placing yourself in people’s favor. Once they start thinking about you when they encounter a problem — perhaps one you yourself has created — you succeed in planting yourself in their good graces.

  Greta tours the Strongholds politically, and from afar she watches talents bloom in noble lineages. She waits, she watches, and she writes.

  Greta plans.

  As her family grows and she calculates on how to get them on her side, she thinks of the future she’s planning to see.

  Her name is Greta Queenscage.

  And she will make this Empire pay.

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