*Isla*

“Lift the curse?”

I can’t help but repeat the phrase Commander Pepelos has just said to me. Confusion washes over me, not for the first time. “What are you talking about?” I ask him. “How do you know all of this about Maatua?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think this is the right place to discuss this, Your Highness. Why don’t we go inside, into your private chambers, and we can discuss it there?”

“My private chambers?” Nothing he has said makes the statement sound suggestive at all, but I am wondering what people will think if they find out I have some strange man in my room,...