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standing before Shelby had to die, maybe a hundred times before the lifetime when Shelby knew Luce—the lifetime when Luce got her first chance to break her curse.
    It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that she had to die again and again, and had to go through pain like this at so many moments in between. More than anyone, Lucinda deserved to be happy.
    Shelby wanted to do something for Lucinda, even if it was something small.
    She glanced at Miles again. He raised one eyebrow in a way Shelby hoped meant
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
She nodded.
    “This is only a big misunderstanding,” Shelby said. “We know Daniel.”
    “You do?” Lucinda looked surprised.
    “Tell you what: You go to the fair tomorrow, and I’m sure Daniel will be there, too, and you guys can just—”
    Lucinda’s lip quivered, and she buried her face in Shelby’s shoulder as she began to weep. “I could not bear to see him draw another’s name from the urn.”
    “Lucinda,” Miles said so warmly that the girl’s eyescleared and she looked at him in the intimate way Luce sometimes looked at him. It made Shelby strangely jealous. Shelby looked away as Miles asked, “You believe that Daniel truly loves you?”
    Lucinda nodded.
    “And in your heart,” Miles went on, “do you really believe that the connection you have with Daniel is so weak that your family’s position might sever the bond?”
    “He—he does not have a choice. It is written in the Knights’ Code. He must marry a—”
    “Luce! Don’t you know that your love is stronger than some dumb code?” Shelby blurted out.
    Lucinda raised an eyebrow. “Come again?” she asked.
    Miles shot Shelby a warning glance.
    “I mean, erm … true love runs deeper and stronger than mere social niceties. If you love Daniel, then you must tell him how you feel.”
    “I feel odd.” Lucinda was flushed, holding a hand over her breast. She closed her eyes, and for a moment Shelby thought she was going to burn up right then and there. Shelby took a step back.
    But that wasn’t how it worked, was it? Luce’s curse had something to do with the way she and Daniel interacted, something his presence awakened in her.
    “I want to believe that what you say is true. I do feel suddenly that our love is very strong.”
    “Strong enough that if we brought Daniel to you at the festival tomorrow,” Shelby said, “you would go to him?”
    Lucinda opened her eyes. They were wild and wide and brilliantly hazel. “I would go. I would go anywhere in the world to be with him again.”

THREE

HIS SWORD, HIS WORD
    “T hat was brilliant!” Shelby cried when Lucinda had gone and she and Miles were alone at the well.
    In the western sky, the sun’s rays had turned pale. Most of the citizens were making their way home, carts and satchels heavy with provisions for the evening’s supper. Shelby hadn’t eaten in a long time, but she hardly noticed the scents of roasting chicken and boiling potatoes in the air. She was running on the fumes of her excitement. “You and I were completely on the same pageback there. It was like I thought something, and you said it—like a crazy rhythm we got into!”
    “I know.” Miles plunged the ladle into the bucket and took a long, slow drink of water. His freckles had come out in the sunlight. Shelby was still getting used to how different he looked without his baseball cap. “You were right—it felt good to make Luce feel better. Even if she’s not
our
Luce.” For a second, Miles’s head jerked to the left, as if he’d heard something. His body stiffened.
    “What is it?” Shelby asked.
    But then his shoulders slumped a little lower than their normal casual mode. “Nothing. I thought I saw an Announcer, but it was nothing.”
    Shelby didn’t want to think about Announcers; she was too excited. “You know what would be amazing?” she said, sitting down on the edge of the well. “We could go shopping for them both, get some lacy trinket for Luce and