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“Why don’t I go out the other gate and you go with Oscar?” Deni asked uneasily.

“Because I can make it so that no one knows I was even there,” she told him bluntly, and after a short staring match, he lowered his gaze and nodded.

The door opened behind them, and the officer came out, a pack slung over his shoulder.

“You should go out the back way,” Ava told him. “There’s too many people in the front.”

“Good idea.” He was still slurring his words and he walked past them and down the stairs, unsteady on his feet.

“Where’s he going?” Oscar’s voice was hushed.

“I persuaded him to desert. That should make things a little more difficult in Bartolo for the Kassian, as apparently he was in charge of the units going to hide in the cisterns.”

“You are scary, Ava. As scary as the Commander.” Oscar didn’t sound scared, though. He sounded admiring.

“Guess we were made for each other, then.” She grinned at him even as she thought about how the officer had recognized her from a picture circulated by her cousin. “Now let’s take my own advice and leave out the back door.”

Chapter 34

She walked into camp and looked around.

She’d left the horse she’d stolen to graze a little way back, and had wound her scarf over her head, mouth and neck, more to ward off the cold than to increase the effectiveness of the invisibility spell.

It looked as if Massi and Raun-Tu were in charge here.

General Ru and Luc would be with the main army.

She had passed two Kassian scout parties on her way here. She had thought, when she’d run into the second one, that she’d have to abandon her horse, because she hadn’t thought it became invisible along with her, but she had been proved wrong.

They had walked past her, not quite within touching distance but close enough.

She’d kept her hand on her horse’s neck and counted herself lucky.

She couldn’t hide the sound of the hoofs on the hard ground, though, which is why she had left it behind to infiltrate the camp.

She just wanted to make sure everything was as it should be.

Massi and Raun-Tu were sitting together outside a small tent, arguing softly while most of the camp slept.

There were guards set all around, but there didn’t seem to be a sense that they were on high alert.

Ava sat down on the other side of the fire.

“We can only pretend to be unaware of the scouts for so long,” Massi was saying. “At some point they’re going to get suspicious and realize we aren’t as undisciplined as we look.”

“And when they realize that, that’s when we attack,” Raun-Tu countered.

“Attack who?” Massi threw up her hands. “Two scout groups of four each?”

Ava stood up, walked away into the darkness, took off her scarf and walked back.

“It’s me.” She tilted her head at Raun-Tu’s drawn bow, and wondered how he would react to it missing her completely.

Massi swore and Ava sent her a quick grin.

“How did you get through the guards?” Raun-Tu lowered his bow and sounded like he would like to go knock some heads together.

“Quietly and carefully.” She shrugged. “I’m a well-trained spy for the general, remember?”