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I bit my lips raw, thinking the words over and over:Gareth is alive. Gareth is alive.I would absolutelynotthink of how I wished we’d managed to save him and not Alastrina. She’d been there for longer than he had; it was only fair. But then, Alastrina had been well taken care of—pet of a fae, a popular attraction. A warrior, a wilder. What creatures of Mhorghast would value Gareth’s sage mind?

I fell into a troubled sleep sitting slumped against my pillows, and when I jolted upright, my windows were soft with dawn and my skin was cold with fear. I lay there for a moment, my heart racing. Osmund was cleaning himself contentedly on the hearthrug. I heard no sounds of battle from downstairs, no cries of anger. And yet I couldn’t ignore the panic twisting in my stomach. Something was wrong.

I hadn’t ever changed into my nightclothes and raced downstairsin the ragged gown I’d worn to Mhorghast, just as Gilroy came into the entrance hall with the morning post. Ryder was behind him, tramping in through the front doors wearing dirty boots and smelling of horses.

“Ah, Lady Farrin,” said Gilroy genially, as if we hadn’t all stayed up half the night planning for war. “A letter has arrived for you from Fairhaven bearing the seal of the queen.”

And there was the reason for my dread. I knew it the moment he lifted the envelope into the air, the moment I saw the distinctive purple wax seal. I didn’t even thank him, just ripped the envelope from his hand and tore it open. I quickly read the hastily scrawled letter five times, my heart sinking so fast I felt dizzy.

Finally I looked up, tears in my eyes, and found Ryder standing tensely by the doors. He was focused entirely on me, his expression grim, as if he knew what I had to say before I even uttered the words.

“Yvaine is dying,” I choked out. “She’s bedridden, hardly talking, not eating. I’m to come at once to say…” I shook my head, unable to finish the awful sentence. “They think she may have only days left to live.”

I crumpled the letter in my fists, as if that could somehow render false the news it carried. As if pain and heartbreak could be banished with a flick of my demigod wrist.

I tried to anchor myself with the steady blue steel of Ryder’s gaze. There were so many things to say, and I couldn’t find the words for any of them. My heart still twinged with hurt and disbelief. This was a man for whom I’d bared my entire self—body and heart and mind. That he hadn’t told me what he’d done until Ankaret urged the truth out of him still ate at me, but what felt even worse was remembering the unfair accusation I’d leveled at him.You love my power, I’d told him.Not me. All the extraordinary kindnesses he had shown me, and in my anger the only response I had found was cruelty. Remembering how I’d lashed out, how the words I’d spat under those dark northerntrees had seemed for a moment to strike all the light from his eyes, made it painful to look at him.

And yet I wanted no one else with me but him. Not for this, not for anything.

“Will you come with me to see her?” I asked him, tears hot at the back of my throat.

His grave expression softened. “I would go with you anywhere.”

Chapter 25

When we arrived at the palace, two royal guards were waiting for us in the queen’s tower. One of them was Captain Vara, the guard’s golden-sashed commander.

“Ah, Lady Farrin,” she said, striding forward. “Lord Ryder. She’s been expecting you.”

That surprised me, though perhaps it shouldn’t have. “She’s been expecting both of us?”

“Well.” Captain Vara cleared her throat. “I suppose I should say, she expected you would bring Lord Ryder, my lady. This way, please.”

I hesitated. Captain Vara was startlingly calm, even pleasant—not at all what I’d expected. In fact, nothing here was as I’d expected. Besides the protesters gathered at the gates and the general unrest in the air since the second wave of abductions, the mood of the palace itself was almost serene. No one was running through the marbled hallways bemoaning the tragedy of losing their queen.

I glanced up at Ryder, who was glaring around the corridor with a furrowed brow, like an angry watchdog determined to sniff out an intruder. His hand hovered at the small of my back; I was glad for it,and for the knives hidden up our sleeves and in our boots, the dagger tucked into his jacket, and Ankaret’s feather tucked into mine. I held a song at the ready in my throat. This practice of preparing a melody with intent—like Ryder nocking one of his arrows, ready for battle—was easier each time I tried it.You must practice this, Ankaret had told me.You have let it sit idle for too long. She had to remind you. And remind me she had, with her fire and her lightning eyes. The memory of her unreadable face of flames was a strange comfort.

We followed Captain Vara through the tower’s winding hallways until I suddenly realized where she was taking us—a winter garden in a small atrium tucked into one of the queen’s receiving rooms. I knew it well.

At the room’s entrance, Captain Vara stepped aside and gestured solemnly at the atrium’s lush greenery. “Don’t worry, my lady, we’ll stay on this side and guard the passage.”

“What is the meaning of all this?” Ryder growled under his breath. “Where is the queen?”

“She’s at the Green House,” I murmured, starting to put together the pieces of this bizarre puzzle. “My family’s cottage on the edge of town. This is a greenway that leads to it.”

“Her Majesty enjoys spending mornings at the Green House, my lady,” Captain Vara offered. “She thinks it a peaceful place.”

I sensed Ryder’s surprise, though he bit his tongue and kept quiet. I slipped past the captain into the atrium and let the greenway’s magic carry me gently through its passage. This greening magic was particularly fine; the crossing was quick and soft. Two seconds later, I stood in the gardens of the Green House, sheltered from the morning sun by a canopy of golden flowers. All around us, tall autumn grasses, white with puffy fronds, whispered in the wind.

Ryder was right behind me, and he stayed close as we crossed the quiet lawn. The house stood unlocked; no ward magic rippled at ourpassage, and the dining room doors had been thrown open to receive the morning air.

“There you are!” Yvaine burst through the doors and hurried across the veranda to embrace me. She wore a diaphanous gown of brilliant purple chiffon, the bodice spangled with diamonds, the iridescent sleeves trailing the ground. Her hair was loose, unornamented, her arms thin but fierce around my neck, but when she pulled back to look at me, I saw the gray under her eyes, the gray of her cheeks. Even the pink scar on her forehead had changed and now shimmered silver.

But she was alive, and for a moment all I could do was exist in the wash of my relief. I drew her back to me and put my hands on the silken down of her hair. I felt the wild pounding of her heart against mine and blinked back tears, trying to find my voice. She was alive, she was alive.

“What’s happening here?” Ryder muttered behind me. “Farrin received a note that you were dying, bedridden, that you had only days left in this world. And yet here you are, looking more or less as you always have.”

Yvaine looked up at him, her eyes sparkling. “Oh, Ryder. I do love your bluntness. No, I’m not dying. At least, not today. And I’m certainly not bedridden. I just…I wanted you to come quickly, both of you, and I knew that would do it. I wasn’t sure where you’d be—these days, it’s far too exhausting to use my power to locate anyone—so I sent one note to Ivyhill and another to Ravenswood. Hopefully no one in your family will open it in your stead, Ryder, and fly into a panic.”