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So… Hawthorne had been treating her just like all the other apprentices. She shrugged off the thought. ‘Bloodwoods?’

Kipp looked horrified. ‘We love you, Thea, but I’m not freezing my bollocks off in the dark for you.’

‘Because in the light would be so much better?’ She laughed. ‘Where, then?’

Kipp tapped his chin thoughtfully. ‘I know a place,’ he said, making for the door.

Cal gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘Of course you do.’

Unsure what to expect, but feeling lighter than she had in weeks, Thea followed her friends just beyond the stables to an abandoned courtyard, where Kipp paced, scuffing the dirt with his boots. ‘It’s somewhere here,’ he muttered, more to himself than to the others.

‘What are you looking for?’

Kipp was quiet, still pacing, still kicking at the ground. ‘This!’ he said victoriously, reaching down and pulling on the handle to an iron hatch.

‘What is that?’ Cal asked, his voice laced with scepticism.

‘Shut up and help me with this, would you?’ Kipp retorted, motioning to the heavy trap door.

Thea watched on, fascinated. She’d never noticed the hatch before, but why would she? The small courtyard was hardly used but for readying horses and unloading supplies.

With a series of grunts, the young men pulled the door free, revealing a ladder down into a cellar. Thea’s skin prickled in recognition. But it wasn’t until she had climbed down and Kipp had lit a torch that she truly knew it for what it was.

Though it was full to the brim with kegs and barrels now, it was undeniably the same room where she and the other children had been hidden two decades before, during the attack on Thezmarr. As she wandered its perimeter, she even spotted the grate from which she’d spied upon the women surrendering their weapons in the main courtyard, the smell of burnt hair and heather drifting through the grate.

‘Thea?’ Kipp was saying. ‘How about that mead?’

She nodded, passing it to him. ‘What is this place? How do you know about it?’

Kipp looked around as though checking to make sure no one else could hear as Cal closed the door above and slid down the ladder, dropping down beside them.

‘It’s the masters’ cellar. I discovered it a long time ago,’ he explained, pointing to a locked door. ‘That there is the main fortress larder.’

Cal motioned to a door on the opposite side. ‘What about that one?’

‘That? Oh… That’s nothing.’

‘Nothing? It’s nevernothingwith you.’

Kipp gave a conspirator’s grin at that and tugged a kerchief from his pocket. He waved it at them, a bushy fox’s tail embroidered in the corner. ‘The Son of the Fox has his secrets, my friends. A man of mystery.’

Thea rolled her eyes. ‘You just going to cradle that mead all night, man of mystery, or are we gonna drink it?’

Kipp laughed and took a swig straight from the jug, passing it to her. He went about examining the stores, as though taking stock of what might come in handy later, ever the strategist.

Thea drank from the growler, the sour mead washing over her tongue, nearly moaning at the crisp taste. She hadn’t indulged in a long time, not when training was so brutal and she was up before dawn every morning. Making herself comfortable atop one of the barrels, she held the jug out to Cal.

He jumped up onto the drum beside hers and accepted gratefully, drinking deep. ‘This a reward for all the ruthless drills you’ve been doing?’

The mead nearly came out of Thea’s nose. ‘Reward? You’re joking.’

Cal frowned. ‘No?’

Kipp returned to them, a few of his pockets bulging, but his face was serious as he surveyed her, his eyes lingering on her splinted fingers and bruises. ‘You’ve been training hard…’

‘That’s my job,’ Thea replied, a little defensively.

‘You need to be in one piece for the Great Rite,’ Cal said carefully, passing the jug to Kipp.