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The King bit his lips together. Then, he huffed another laugh to himself, and he walked past her.

He left the Hall of Stars.

Whispers rose, some Intelligentsia taking steps after him. Even the organizers looked dumbfounded as the King marched down the navy carpet and out the silver arch. Ryn turned to watch him go, and only when he was out of sight did her heart cease its pounding against her chest.

“Well, that concludes our Introduction Ceremony! I’m sure the King was pleased to meet all the Heartstealer maidens,” the organizer host said, though, he didn’t look convinced the King was pleased with any of it. “Thank you all for coming!”

Nobles shifted around and the maidens excused themselves, one of the maidens glaring at Ryn on her way out. But Ryn remained standing at the foot of the glass dais, staring at the silver arch. Asking herself what she’d done.

Asking if that young, handsome landscaper was really the King of Per-Siana or if this was some kind of trick.

A Folke guard moved by the silver entrance, and Ryn glanced over to him. Her focus sharpened on his red-cheeked face, and for a moment she forgot where she was. A blond-haired priest stood there—one she’d seen almost every day walking past her house, one she often chased down the street for fun, one who always joined her and Kai for dinner on special occasions.

Matthias wore dark blue Folke armour and had a sword strapped to his hip. He cast Ryn a look of warning, and she thought she was dreaming. She took a step toward him, but he gave her a small shake of his head, and she halted.

No, of course she couldn’t approach him. But what was Matthias doing here?

“Kai sent someone in as soon as you were taken.”Theo’s words rang through Ryn’s mind, and she nearly gasped in the middle of the Hall of Stars.

Matthias?!

She could hardly believe it. Of all people, Kai had sent in sweet-hearted, good-naturedMatthiaswho never crushed bugs because he believed they deserved to live just as much as humans? Did Matthias even know how to use that Folke sword?

Ryn thought of the priests at the Priesthood temple carrying weapons. How Theo was ready to strike her down outside the temple. How he’d worn a black cloak over his green priest garments.

But the priests were wrong. Ryn needed to tell Matthais everything before it was too late; what she’d done in the garden, how she’d insulted the King, how the Priesthood’s plan was no longer going to work—

A hand took Ryn’s wrist; Heva pulled her toward the arch.

“Wait,” Ryn said from a dry mouth. She tugged her arm free and pushed through the crowd to a table of flowers in glass vases. She ripped a white petal from a large bloom.

“What are you doing?” Heva’s low whisper found her. “Everyone’s looking at you, Ryn.”

Ryn grabbed a lead pen resting beside an abandoned organizer’s book. The pen hovered over the petal as Ryn realized she didn’t know the Per-Siana alphabet. To save her from Weylin bullying, her mother had homeschooled her, but they hadn’t studied letters much before her mother’s passing. Ryn had only learned theAdrielalphabet years later from exploring the scriptures with Kai.

She scribbled a quick note on the flower petal in Adriel symbols, and she tossed the lead pen back down. The petal was delicate in her fingers, and she thought about crushing it in her palm instead. What if someone saw this note and realized she wrote it? What if someone learned there was an Adriel—no,twoAdriels now—in the palace? What if her Adriel letters got both herandMatthias in trouble?

Heva appeared ready to explode when Ryn turned around. The guardswoman’s hand was on her sword like she was worried the nobles would rush Ryn and she’d have to draw it. She took Ryn’s arm again, gentler this time, and guided her back to the navy carpet.

Ryn didn’t look at Matthias as they passed. But she dropped the petal to the floor by his feet. She chewed on her lip as she hoped and prayed he’d know enough to grab it before anyone else did.

Ryn’s hand flashed to her chest once they were in the hall.

“What just happened?” Heva asked, stealing a glance back over her shoulder. “What, by the Divinities, justhappened?”

“I don’t know,” Ryn rasped. “But Heva, I can’t be a spy anymore.” She didn’t mention that she expected guards to flood her room tonight, to drag her out to be executed for escaping the Heartstealer trials.

Heva didn’t object. “What did you write on that petal?” she asked as they rushed through the atrium toward Ryn’s rooms.

Ryn swallowed. She hoped all over again that what she wrote would find its way to the right person, and not the wrong one:

I’VE MADE A MISTAKE

TELL KAI TO GET ME OUT OF HERE

A brick.

Ryn spent hours pacing the length of her room before she finally sent Heva away in the evening. Heva objected, but Ryn argued she wouldn’t sleep if Heva was there. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but Ryn hadn’t told Heva about her encounter in the garden, about why the King was so interested in her at the Introduction Ceremony. The less Heva knew now, the better. If Ryn was going to be taken by the Folke, Heva didn’t deserve to be punished alongside her.