Page 16

This stirred the crowd more than anything else, and Alder knew that Massie had just won the people’s loyalty.

But not that of Rys’s sister.

Josephine.

Alder had spotted her the moment she’d stepped into the courtyard—that snow-white hair was a beacon—accompanied by what Alder presumed to be her mother and younger sister. The mother looked exasperated and weary, while the younger sister—he couldn’t remember her name—stood poised and calm.

Yet there, in high contrast, stood Josephine. The lion, Rys had called her. She watched Massie like a huntress, as though truth were a rodent bounding deftly through the shroud of his empty words, and every one of her senses trained to catch it, to drag it out by the scruff and expose it for the rotting filth it was.

Sharp, that one.

So sharp, she’d spotted him in the crowd at once, and he’d had to find another place for cover.

The veiled woman’s mask turned in Alder’s direction, and he felt that strange press of cold air again.

Time to go.

“Has Prince Alder brought depraved through the Rift?” someone asked as Alder wove through the crowd.

“Thus far, he has not,” Massie answered, “but that holds no bearing on whether or not hewill…”

Alder squeezed between two wagons and slipped into a narrow side street, where he strode on?—

“Hey!” a woman’s voice called out.

Alder stopped in his tracks and glanced over his shoulder to see a shock of white hair.

Josephine.

She’d followed him.

And she was the entire reason he was here. He could hand over the ring—be done with it—and he was just reaching into his coat when he felt those tendrils of cold again, followed by whispers.

Alder turned, and sprinted.

“Wait!” the girl yelled and gave chase.

Fates, she moved fast for a mortal, and a short one at that. Alder turned down a footpath that led behind an abandoned smithy, and the sound of Josephine’s pursuit vanished completely.

The cold and whispers disappeared too.

Alder glanced back, relieved to see an empty path behind him. He hadn’t expected to lose Josephine that easily, and he slowed his pace?—

Only to barrel right into her.

Alder grunted with surprise, gripping her shoulders for balance, when a surge of energy zinged through his body, like the reverberations of a bowstring.

What in the?—?

Alder’s confusion reflected in the girl’s own eyes—so blue, brilliant as a summer sky—but Alder gathered himself, shoved her off, and sprinted on.

She cried out as she fell, and Alder felt a stab of guilt for that, but it would be far worse for her if Massie or this witch found her with him. He pressed on, his long legs carrying him farther, and farther, over a low wall and bounding up another, where he perched upon a high rooftop.

He watched as she rounded the corner, as her steps slowed and she cursed in frustration because she’d reached a dead end. She didn’t bother looking up in his direction; no mortal could’ve jumped and climbed as he had done. He saw the moment she relented, when she finally admitted defeat.

She pushed that wild hair from her flushed face, turned, and strode on, back the way she’d come, and Alder was oddly sad to see her go.

The snow turned back into rain as Seph made her way home. She was slipping within the shadows, her mind lost in thought over the hooded stranger, the coat, and all Lord Massie had said, when a door opened and a familiar face popped out.