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He moved over and sat on her bed, checking over her clothes. He looked like himself this time. So whatever working he’d used to hide his face had either faded or he’d stopped using it.

“No black silk, that I can see,” he said and tossed them to her. “Put them on.”

She moved back to step behind the screen.

“No.” He held a throwing knife in his hand. “I’m very accurate. You put them on where I can see you.”

She slid the pants up under the linen wrap, and then shrugged the shirt over her head and tugged the wrap down.

It fluttered to the floor.

“How long have you been in Fernwell?” she asked him.

“Long enough to know I was lied to by my boss.” He gave a grimace. “The welcome here was not at all the warm one I was told to expect.”

“So, why are you still doing his bidding?” Ava asked.

“There’s still something in it for me, as long as I have you with me.”

“How are you going to get the Queen of Kassia out of the city?” The Rising Wave was everywhere. He had to know it would be difficult to get far.

“This.” He held up a necklace. “The last of its kind, I’m told, since the Grimwaldian who made it died. Changes your appearance. They won’t think I’m leaving with the queen, because you will not look like the queen.”

She knew the necklace worked. She’d seen it with her own eyes.

“The Speaker never told me about your connection to Kassia. I had no idea.” He shook his head in disappointment. “But we won’t worry about him, because you’ll be making me some things on our way there that will put me in charge, not him.”

These people who kept thinking she could be coerced into doing their bidding.

“No.”

“That’s not the answer I’m looking for.”

“Throw your knife at me, then, because I’m not interested in being dragged to Grimwalt by a deluded criminal. I have no idea what these things are you’re talking about, and I don’t care, either way.”

He stared at her. Threw the knife.

Not to kill her, she noticed, as he aimed for high on her right shoulder. It somehow missed.

“That should have hit you.” He rose from the corner of her bed. “There is no way I could have missed.”

Ava shrugged. “But you did.”

He threw a second one, and Ava saw he had five sheaths along his belt.

He aimed at the same spot, and it went astray again.

He stared at her in horror. “You’ve got some protection. Something I missed.”

Ava looked around for a weapon. Her own knife was gone, and she hadn’t had a chance to look for something in the armory.

The two knives he’d thrown at her would do, she decided, and turned to see where they’d landed.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he said, suddenly. “You’re wearing something magic-worked. You were just feigning ignorance.”

As Ava bent to pick up the first knife, he threw a third, and she felt the handle skim along her back and clatter to the floor.

“Maybe hands around your throat will work.” The words were guttural.