"Who will save me?" Giana gasped and scrabbled under the quilt.
"Stay still," a deep voice said from the dark.
"Don't kill me," I whispered, because that was the only instinct left from the life I remembered. My heart kicked like a trapped bird.
Logan Russo blinked awake on the other side of the bed. He was forty feet of a man in armor compared to my thin frame. He sat up, hair messy, and the candlelight cut hard angles into his face.
"Who are you?" he asked. His voice did not tremble.
"I'm Giana Deleon," I said. "I'm staying here—guest of the General." My voice sounded small and rehearsed. Saying that name felt like holding a life jacket.
Logan's eyes narrowed. "You're in my bedchamber. Explain."
"I woke up screaming," I lied. "Someone broke in. I didn't mean—"
The door crashed open before I could patch the lie into anything solid.
"Mabel! How dare you—" a sharp woman shouted. Her skirts stuttered at the threshold. Mabel Scholz, perfect teeth, claws in silk. Her eyes found me and lit.
"Shame!" Mabel cried. "Scandal!" Her voice was a bell. "Giana! Everyone saw you this morning—"
Kenia's fan slapped shut with a smart crack. "She was found in a man's bed, Father will be ruined," Kenia said, every word a match to a pile of dry leaves. She smiled with teeth made for knives.
"Silence," Logan said.
"Chancellor Ulysses Duncan will be humiliated
