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“I do not fear the Shadows,” I assured her. “I will gladly slay them. I’ll do whatever I can to protect you. As you said, not because I am your knight but because I—” Emotion made the words snag inside of my throat. “Because I could not bear it if you were in danger.”

“Thank you,” she said again. Her eyes, the bright color of amber in the sunlight, met with mine. “What about tonight? We—we should not risk traveling at dusk.”

Ofelia was right—as the Shadows grew more powerful, being out at night became a near death sentence. Yet it might be inevitable for us. I passed her back the reins to reach into my leather satchel. I unfolded a map for her, pointing to where we were. “We’ll reach a small town just before sunset,” I told her. “We can spend the night there. But when night falls and we have yet to return from our “shopping,” the other knights will doubtlessly assume we’re on our way to Le Château. They’ll pursue us and probably send us back to the manor as your mother ordered, if we’re caught.”

Ofelia bit her lip. “So to get to Mother first... we’llhaveto travel by night.”

I sighed. “Unfortunately so, my lady.”

Across my body, like a king would wear a riband, I wore a leather belt with two sheathed knives. I removed one blade, sheath and all, and held it out to Lady Ofelia. She accepted the gift with a slight frown.

“I promise to keep you safe,” I told her softly. “I promise to kill as many as I can. But if something happens, I want you armed as well.”

Ofelia gazed down at the knife, her brow knitting with concentration. She carefully withdrew it from its sheath, watching the steel glimmer in the sun. “Perhaps I’m a fool. Risking so much when Mother could be fine.”

“You’re not a fool. You love her. You’d do anything for her.”

Her gaze met with mine, and in the silence, my own words seemed to echo back to me, seemed to turn a mirror toward me. The way she looked at me, like she understood something, like she saw something in me that I did not—it made me burn.

For her, I would gladly let myself turn to ash.

5

Ofelia

We spent one night in an inn, where Lope insisted upon sleeping on the floor so that I could have the bed to myself. I knew she would ignore any of my protests, so I let her have her stubborn chivalry. This was our one night when we would be sheltered and safe. I savored every minute of it. We whispered to each other in the darkness until I was enfolded in sleep.

The next day, we traveled as fast as the horses would allow. And the journey was marvelous. Rolling hills and sunflower fields passed us, great pastures of green and yellow, hushed forests with winding paths carved through. Little veins leading to the beating heart of Le Château. My own pulse quickened as we inched closer. I imagined a string pulling on my chest, pulling me home, to Mother.

But night fell.

Lope was right. There weren’t any cities nearby; none thatI could see, even when I squinted at the horizon. No steeples, no towers, no silos, no hovels. Just the dark, cloudlike wisps of trees in the distance.

I sat beside Lope on the driver’s bench, her cloak wrapped tight around me like a blanket. I kept my gaze affixed to the horizon, waiting,longingfor the palace to appear. The night dragged on, every minute torturous, filled with the fear that a monster lurked nearby. I watched the sky darken and then turn a deep dusty blue with the pearl-white moon faint and low in the sky.

“Should we find shelter?” I whispered, my voice and my body drooping with fatigue.

“We’ll reach Le Château soon, my lady,” she said, “but until then, we cannot stop.” I held on to her words like an anthem, one that tolled in my head again and again and brought me hope.

Then, gloriously, wonderfully, I saw a small shape in the distance. Rounded at the top like the dome of a building.

No, smaller. A slender neck and shoulders. It was a person.

No.

Lope glared at the shape like it had offended her. Then she held tight to my wrist.

“Shadows,” she whispered.

My heart ricocheted just at their name. “What should we do?”

“Hold on to your knife.”

I gripped the dagger, covered in its sheath. My heart throbbed in my throat. Could I, a girl who’d only ever wielded an embroidery needle, face down and kill aShadow? Especially after the last time?

“We’re going to try to outrun it,” she said.

At her command, I held tight to the little wooden railing on the right of the bench. She lashed the reins of the horses. They lurched forward, picking up into as much of a gallop as they could, bearing the weight of the wagon. The messenger bag and the crates in the back jostled and slid about as we raced forward.