Midnight Strikes

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.Text copyright © 2023 by Zeba ShahnazCover art copyright © 2023 by Luke LucasMap art copyright © 2023 by Priscilla SpencerInterior chapter opener art used under license from Shutterstock.comAll rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.Visit us on the Web! GetUnderlined.comEducators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.comLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.ISBN 9780593567555 (hardcover) — ISBN 9780593567562 (lib. bdg.) — ebook ISBN 9780593567579Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.Penguin Random House LLC supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to publish books for every reader.ep_prh_6.0_142814580_c0_r0 ContentsCoverTitle PageCopyrightDedicationMapI: Chapter OneII: Chapter OneIII: Chapter OneIII: Chapter TwoIV: Chapter OneV: Chapter OneVI: Chapter OneVI: Chapter TwoVII: Chapter OneVIII: Chapter OneIX: Chapter OneX: Chapter OneXI: Chapter OneXI: Chapter TwoXII: Chapter OneXII: Chapter TwoXIII: Chapter OneXIV: Chapter OneXIV: Chapter TwoXV: Chapter OneXVI: Chapter OneXVII: Chapter OneXVIII: Chapter OneXIX: Chapter OneXIX: Chapter TwoXIX: Chapter ThreeXIX: Chapter FourAcknowledgments_142814580_ For Mom and Dad, for everything. Thank you. One night. You just have to survive here one more night.Unfortunately, for a Proensan nobody in the royal court of Ivarea, that’s easier said than done.Tonight is the crown jewel of the social season, the most important party the provinces of Ivarea have ever seen: the celebration of four centuries of the Cardona dynasty’s reign. The Anniversary Ball is the opportunity my family has been waiting for ever since our people were first conquered by the Ivareans—the reason my parents dragged me seven hundred miles across the sea and over land to the capital. If they can defy the odds and arrange my marriage into a prominent courtly house, our family will be launched to the highest tier of Ivarean elite society. To a position of respect and power that our people, the Proensans, have not had since the Cardona conquest. This is a prize more than worth the cost of my future.Or so I’m told.Eight weeks ago, when I was first shoved through the grand double doors of the palace for my debut, I thought that the rigors of this historically grueling season would get easier to endure with time. I used to hope that each dazzling ball, each refined tea party, each perfunctory dance, would feel a little less like a living nightmare, because each one meant that the season was coming that much closer to an end. I hoped that each moment was bringing me that much closer to home.But it never got easier. It never will get easier in a royal court that looks down on Proensans just because we’re Proensans, regardless of our titles or lands or wealth. And now that I’ve finally made it to the Anniversary Ball, I’m not at all sure I’ll make it out intact.Tonight, I throw myself into the centers of gravity within the grand ballroom of the Alcázar Real de Marenca as earnestly as any of the hundreds of grandes from every corner of the kingdom also in attendance. Beneath shimmering chandeliers that float across the elaborately painted ceiling, ladies in voluminous gowns clash with lovers and enemies alike from behind fluttering fans, and gentlemen bearing ceremonial swords that have been passed down through storied bloodlines for centuries shout gaily to their fellows in privilege and glory. Each and every one of them is desperate to emerge at dawn with something—or someone—they didn’t have before, but then again, so am I. So I smile at them like I’m deranged and flirt with them until I feel sick. When the dancing begins in earnest, I even manage to snag a minuet with young Don Fernando Peláez, who is everything I’m supposed to want in a future husband: well-connected, wealthy, a real Ivarean. He smiles at me as we take our places on the dance floor, which my foolish heart takes as a good sign.Maybe this one will be different. Maybe this one will finally put me out of my misery. Maybe this one will look at me and not find me wanting.“You look absolutely enchanting tonight, Doña Anaïs.”Fernando twirls me by the arm, and the satin skirts of my gown flare out with me. My mother designed it to match the depths of my red opal locket, with gold and garnet beading down the bodice and a blood-red brocade underskirt. Contrary to what some of the grandes who dominate the capital might assume, I’m no stranger to overwrought ensembles, but I have never hated one more than this—less because of what it looks like, and more because of what it means for my family’s future. What that future will demand of me.“And by the saints,” Fernando adds with a quicksilver grin that matches his celestially spangled waistcoat, “you’re a surprisingly great dancer.”My lacquered lashes flutter as we trade steps like feints in a duel. “Why is that so surprising, Don Fernando?”“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I didn’t think you Proensans paid attention to dance crazes here in the capital.”I bite down a grimace. To people like Fernando, who hail from the central heartland of the Ivarean peninsula in the province of Castara, us Proensans are not real Ivareans, not even two hundred years after we were absorbed into this kingdom. People on the peninsula see us as barely domesticated country bumpkins whose inclusion in elite Ivarean