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Theo made sure Melodie was happy there were no traps with every turn they took in the clearly marked path.

He still couldn’t believe she had found him in that pit. He had felt entombed in the shallow hole, and he knew magic must have been at work. He had drunk in the sight of her as he brushed leaves out of his hair and eyes, relieved and elated beyond words.

He’d felt like an idiot. He had been so focused on checking Marchant’s hidey hole’s line of sight in relation to where he planned to hunker down, he hadn’t watched his feet.

But Marchant hadn’t found him, and Melodie had frightened the spell caster off.

Theo didn’t like it that he knew she even existed.

“You’re brooding.” Melodie shot him a slightly amused look.

He couldn’t help the quick uptick of his lips. “I don’t brood. I glower.”

“Ah. Apologies.” She smiled.

“How did Marchant find you?” he asked.

“He said he saw the glow of the net, but he couldn’t have. I only took it out when I heard him running toward me.”

“What do you think it was, then?” Theo kept his voice low, but they would need to understand this before they confronted him again.

“I think it was the paint box. It almost blinded me when I first saw it, and he said he saw a glow.”

Theo had forgotten about the paint box. “You brought it?”

She shrugged. “No use to us back in the inn. And it could be useful.”

But was also a beacon for Marchant.

“Let’s wrap it up.” Theo shrugged off his pack, opened it up, and lifted out a spare shirt Captain Draper had given him.

Melodie shook her head. “That won’t do.”

She crouched down, opened her own pack, and took out the paint box. She set it on the ground, and then began to pull out everything inside her pack.

“Why won’t the shirt do?” Theo asked.

She looked up at him. “It’s spelled itself. The glow is barely there, but it isn’t nothing.”

“What?” He had to force himself to keep his voice down. “Spelled, how?”

“With protection.” She held his gaze briefly, then looked back down at the pile she’d made on the ground. “Almost all the Kassia and Cervantes soldiers wear those shirts. If I see one walking around Illoa without one, then my guess is the protection shirt is in the wash.”

“We all wear shirts that are spelled to protect us.” He said it quietly, and a picture came to mind of the queen sitting in the afternoon sun, needle and thread in hand, with a pile of shirts beside her.

He had always thought it was an endearing tradition, that every soldier in the army received a shirt hand-stitched by their queen when they were accepted into the corps.

She had been protecting them all. The thought was staggering.

And then he remembered little Viviane, sitting by her mother’s side, learning how to do it, and a wave of fear so icy-cold swept over him, he gasped.

“What is it?” Melodie had frozen in place, her expression fearful.

“I . . .” He swallowed. “I think the princess is why Marchant was attracted to the students. I think . . .” He shook himself. “We have to move fast. He knows we’re here now, he knows we’re close. If he’s going to move the children, sell them or whatever he does with his prisoners, he’ll be doing it even faster now.”

“Viviane is responsible for the shirts?” Melodie said, shaking her head. “I thought she was only thirteen years old.”

“Not her.” He didn’t want to say anymore.