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Guilt crushes my chest. This was my idea.

“You realize they have staff who could do this for you?” Nina sits on my bed, knees tucked up under her chin and arms wrapped around her legs, shaking her head at me as I pack my things.

“What else do I have to do?”

“Anything. Packing is horribly dull, and we’ll have plenty of opportunity for horribly dull as we travel to Brasport.”

Our next stop has been added due to other strange occurrences. The general consensus is that it’ll be good to visit another area, since we have time before the first trial. Personally, I feel we should go home and not spread terror over anymore of our kingdom. Far from preventing an increased military presence in Lambridge, Eglingen is now moving forces here. There are questions about who brought in that incendiary treatment, the false investigators, the disappearances, and, thanks to us, the people here are terrified of the magical royals who started the fire which killed their people and destroyed their land.

Since my last idea was so epically awful, my opinion doesn’t matter much now.

A breeze whips through the open balcony door, and Nina groans. “Enough with the damned wind already.”

“I didn’t do that.” I go outside where a strong wind pushes into me. A prickling sensation scurries up my neck, and under the rush of air brushing my ear, another noise is buried.

Nina comes out behind me. “Is a storm coming in so quickly?”

“Shh.” I drop my gaze and focus only on sound. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Someone’s out there. I hear voices on the breeze.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

I push air up underneath both of us and send us into the wind.

“Excuse me!” Nina cries. “I do not wish to”—I wrap a soundproof shield around us—“float around out here chasing ghosts.”

There’s no one around. We get to the outer wall, and I raise us high enough to see over it. The scenery should be familiar to me, but I didn’t pay much attention to it when Tomas and I were out here. Moonbeams reflecting off falling raindrops gave it a glittery veil that night, but all I could see was him.

Now, three men stand near the wall conversing as another emerges from the woods, all wearing our royal seal on their uniforms. Nina gasps and covers her mouth.

I remove our sound barrier.

“The markings are on the leaves,” a man says. “Time pulled here.”

Another groans. “Are we sure the royal brats haven’t found some way to expand their magic?”

A ball of fire appears in Nina’s hand, but she puts it out when I give her a cross look.

“She’s convinced it’s someone else, and lucky for us.”

“This wild goose chase does not feel lucky.”

Nina swishes her hand in a circle and points to her mouth.

I give us a shield. “Go ahead.”

“What do we do?”

“Alert Lord Horace. They won’t claim to work for us if one of us seizes them.”

She nods. “Let’s go then.”

“You go. I’ll keep watch over them.”

“All right.” I lower her to the ground below me.