BloodBound Crown
Lyra said flatly, "or they *won't*?"
A pause that lasted precisely one second too long.
"Won't," he said. "For now."
Lyra turned back to her reflection and tried to find something in it she recognized.
She barely did.
Maeve's assistant—a quiet girl named Sera who worked with the focused intensity of someone who understood that her job today was armor, not decoration—had dressed Lyra in deep midnight blue, a gown that moved like water and cost more than anything Lyra had ever touched in her previous life. The silver thread in her hair caught the light. The mate mark on her throat was deliberately uncovered, visible and unmistakable.