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The girl was charmingly honest.

Ava asked the price, and realized she was going to have to find out how much she’d earned as a guard for the Venyatux, because this purchase would wipe out the rest of the coin she’d brought with her from Grimwalt.

She managed to get a pair of needles and a cable tool thrown in with the wool, and walked out with it in a little hessian bag.

Lettie was grinning as she let Ava out the back. “You are nice.”

Ava smiled back. “Because I bought your expensive wool?”

“Because you didn’t try to get a discount, even though you’re the Commander’s lady.” From the look on the girl’s face, she couldn’t wait to find her mother and tell her the good news. “What are you going to make with it? Something for the Commander?”

“Maybe.”

The girl nodded sagely. “That would be a very good use of our best wool.”

If she had any left, Ava decided, she would make the girl a knitted cap, like she’d seen the Skäddar wearing. It pulled over his head to his ears, and while it was plain, she thought the twisted stitches Raelene had shown her would look very good on it. And it would be quick to make.

She waved a goodbye and started back toward Luc’s tent. Did she want to spend the night there, or should she persuade him to come back to her tent?

The problem with that was if he was needed, they would never find him. The magic she had worked into the canvas would make sure of it.

And when people couldn’t find something that should be there, they might start to wonder.

Her mother had drummed into her to keep her magic secret.

She wouldn’t even discuss her abilities with Ava, which meant Ava didn’t know how powerful she was in comparison to her mother and grandmother, whether everyone with a skill with the needle could do what she did, and what her boundaries were.

Or even how many like her there were.

Her mother’s fear was because of the risk to her. The temptation she posed to those who would force her to do mischief for them. Who would lock her away and make her workings their own.

That fear, though founded, had not helped to keep her safe.

Both Ava—and she later discovered, her mother—had been captured anyway.

Her grandmother’s skills had been known only in Grimwalt, as far as she was able to tell, and only to a select, trusted few, who commissioned workings from her.

Her grandmother had never discussed it with her, but Ava had the impression that it was something only shared with those she trusted.

But her father’s view had been that none were to be trusted. Friends fell out, lovers betrayed you, and when it came to power, all could be bought, for a price.

Her father had said more than once she must never talk about her magic when they were in Kassia, as she would be taken by the Queen and never seen again if her family’s abilities were known.

That was the Kassian way, perhaps. To fear those whose power you didn’t understand.

It had certainly been the case with the Cervantes.

They were such fierce, amazing warriors, the Kassian had taken their children and tried to raise them as a dedicated army for the Kassian cause.

And coming toward her, his body moving in a way she still believed had its own power and magic, was the reason that plan had failed for the Kassian.

Her heart’s choice, a Cervantes warrior from a Chosen camp who had snuck over to the Venyatux army on the eve of battle for the Kassian, made a deal, and then, the following day on the battle field, had turned on his masters, safe in the knowledge the Venyatux would not attack.

The Turncoat King.

“There you are.” Luc smiled at her.

She let his smile warm her, and slid her arm around his waist. “You and the general all finished?”