Rissa ran away seven years ago, hoping to never see her cousin, Rhenise, again.

But when a failed assassination attempt against the Kazari princess leads to the death of an unlucky lady-in-waiting, Rissa – now, a rules-abiding, distrustful Kazari diplomat-in-training – is given an assignment she cannot refuse. She joins the princess’s delegation to a faraway island empire, finally launching her diplomatic career. But at night, she must attend the princess as Lady Rhenise to ensure her lookalike cousin does not become the assassin’s next unintended victim.

While Rissa negotiates an alliance with an empire on the brink of war, Rhenise pursues her own agenda to uncover who sent the assassin against the princess and why. An agenda that – followed blindly – will endanger Rissa, as Rissa knows all too well.

Friends and enemies alike have followed the estranged cousins across the sea, and their hosts’ schemes will drag even Kazarah into war unless Rissa and Rhenise learn to put their rules, their privilege, and their past aside to work together before it’s too late.