MAYBE IT WAS SOMEONE’S SICK sense of humor, but I ended up in Dimitri’s now-vacated cell.

I had come quietly after that guardian laid the charges before me. In fact, I’d become comatose because too much of what he’d said was impossible to process. I couldn’t even really get to the part about me. I couldn’t feel outrage or indignation over the accusation because I was still stuck on the part about Tatiana being dead.

Not just dead. Murdered.

Murdered?

How had that happened? How had that happened around here? This Court was one of the most secure places in the world, and Tatiana in particular was always guarded—by the...