Possibly the only true thing Nico Deverow’s aunt Zelda had ever said to him was that “You’re only as good as the secrets you keep and the lies you tell.” Nico himself had a lot of secrets, and as a result he’d gotten quite good at lying to anyone who mattered. His secrets were not the good kind of secrets, or the kind of secrets that would gain his royal bloodline any power. They tasted like poison, burned like acid, and cut deeper than the knives he always carried, and he was afraid of them.