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Tatiana and I both moved at once. I stepped forward—or rather, I tried to. She, anticipating my move, bolted to her feet, scattering buttons and wires, and practically threw me behind her.

“Run,” she ordered.

“I’m not—”

The strangers didn’t wait for our argument to conclude. They charged into the stable, straight towards me and my sister.

Tatiana flung a contraption of wires in their direction. With a bang, acrid purple smoke began to pour into their faces. At the same time, Aric reared, screaming a stallion’s war cry that split my ears. With a crash of splintering wood, he battered through the stall door. The stable’s other occupants whinnied and shied, adding to the chaos. Confronted by flailing hooves and unexpected magic, our assailants retreated, coughing and choking.

Tatiana dragged me away from the fray, towards the back of the stable. “You have to get out of here. Run. They won’t dare follow you across the border.”

I wrenched my arm out of her grip. “I’m not abandoning you! Either of you!”

-Listen to her,- Aric broke in. - It’s you they’re after.-

“But I—”

-Rot it, Bianca, save yourself and GO!-

Tatiana kicked open a door I hadn’t noticed—a back exit—and shoved me out. I tripped over the lintel and pitched onto hands and knees in the courtyard, the hard-packed earth stinging my palms. I struggled to my feet and whirled, but Tatiana was blocking the door with a resolution I knew all too well.

“Your duty is to save yourself,” she snapped. “Make the right choice. Go. ”

She slammed the stable door in my face.

Choice. Duty. Responsibility.

Curse her—curse both of them—they were right. We were unarmed and badly outnumbered, and I was still recovering from my earlier injuries. I would accomplish nothing by getting myself arrested. Nothing except delivering the throne directly into Varin’s hands.

With a wordless sob of rage, I turned my back and fled towards the Damarian border. Doing my duty, just like always.

I didn’t run far. My resolution, and my strength, took me only to the edge of town before I stopped. Even had I wanted to keep running, I couldn’t. Every ragged breath was a lance in my side, spearing me through where my rib was still mending.

I ducked into an alleyway, holding my arms tight to my sides as if my own embrace were the only thing keeping me from falling apart. I sank to the ground and leaned against the wall, my coat dragging across the plaster. The earth was cold beneath me, damp seeping through the fabric of my trousers. Every breath was a gasp. My heart beat at my chest as if trying to batter its way out.

Breathe. Just breathe. If I treated this like one of my flares—a pain to be endured, nothing more—it would pass. It had to.

Slowly, my breathing steadied, my heart stopped hammering. I became gradually aware of the noises around me. The rumble of cart wheels on the road. The disgruntled clucking of a nearby flock of hens. Voices in both Gilden and Damarian, chiding and bartering and laughing and shouting.

The ordinary sounds of a border town just after dawn. No cries of alarm. No clanking of weaponry. It made no sense, but it was clear enough: no one was chasing me. The strangers hadn’t followed me from the inn.

I crept forward until I could see out of the alleyway. People passed on the street, headed to work or to market, none of them so much as glancing in my direction. The town was readying itself for a bright new day. And here I was, the flower of Damaria, huddling in a dank alleyway while my sister and husband were attacked and I did nothing to defend them. Guilt churned within me, as nauseating as one of my flares.

I couldn’t stay here. I stood, bracing myself against the wall as my knees trembled beneath me, and limped on towards the border. Trying to drown out the voice in my head telling me to stop. That I was going the wrong direction.

I wasn’t sure how long I forged on, each footfall sounding a reproach. My sense of time was warped by fear and fatigue, and the village hadn’t bothered with a public clock. I recalled that something about being on the border affected Adept devices.

Aric probably could have told me why. Or at least discussed theories about it for hours. The thought was a punch to my gut, doubling me over.

It didn’t last long. I was practiced at fighting through pain. I straightened, gritting my teeth, and continued.

Finally, seas only knew how much time later, I was in view of the mountain pass marking the border. Only yards from Damarian soil. A guard hut squatted on each side: the one nearer me flying the flag of Gildenheim, the farther the banner of my country.

I was almost home. Almost safe. A hundred more paces, and I would be back in Damaria, ready to be whisked off to the palace.

I stopped, staring at the watershed point of the pass.

It was too easy. Something about this didn’t feel right.

No one had pursued me from the inn. No one had tried to stop me, and I didn’t understand why. Furthermore… the attack hadn’t been random. They were looking for me.

But how had our attackers known I would be there? It was possible Aric had been recognized at the inn where we’d stayed the first night—but how would anyone have known where we were headed? Somehow, Varin must have intercepted my message to Tatiana and set a trap.

Or else Evito had betrayed us. Varin couldn’t have pulled this off alone—how much of the court had he rallied to his side?

I pulled my coat tighter against a gust of wind, staring at the dual flags as they cracked in the crisp breeze.

If Tatiana and Aric had been taken captive or, drown the thought, killed, there was nothing more I could do for them. I wasn’t foolish enough to think I could outfight five trained guards with nothing more than a dagger. But surely not even my parents could fault me for gathering more intelligence before I returned home, especially since I hadn’t even crossed the border yet. Surely learning as much as possible before I left could be considered part of my duty.

I set my jaw. I would return to the inn, just briefly, and garner what news I could. Perhaps it would ameliorate nothing except my conscience, but at least I would know what had happened to my husband and my sister.

I pulled up my hood, more grateful than ever for the generous cut of Gilden military coats, and turned back the way I’d come, telling myself that this decision was the intelligent one. The one called for by duty, not by selfish desire.

It took me longer than I expected to reach the inn—desperation must have sped my flight more than I realized. By the time the inn was in sight again, the sun was already high overhead. The guards—and with them, Tatiana and Aric—would be long gone. Still, I walked towards the building with all my senses prickling, prepared to dive back into the shadows at any moment.

The inn looked disarmingly tranquil. Sunlight reflected on the fresh paint of its sign as it swayed in the slight breeze. From within came the hum of voices, the clink of cutlery. The remaining guests were enjoying an ordinary luncheon, oblivious to the incident only hours before.

I pulled my hood up more snugly and slipped around the back of the inn towards the stable. If there was any sign of what had happened to Aric and Tatiana, that was where I would find it.

The courtyard was unnervingly quiet. No one stopped me as I crept to the stable entrance, clinging to the shadows. I paused, listening. From the darkness within the structure came the grinding sounds of contented chewing. A horse softly whickered. Another stamped its hoof.

“Aric?” I whispered.

“Can I help you?”

My heart jolted into my throat. My hand dove for my rapier before I remembered I no longer had one. I turned and found myself facing the hostler who had met us on arrival. Her braid hung over her shoulder, a few wisps of hay clinging to its dark strands. She hadn’t recognized me in turn, and her expression was wary. Most likely, she thought I was here to steal her charges.

I eyed the courtyard behind her and considered bolting. But that would only confirm her suspicions, and if she called for reinforcements, I was in no state to outrun them.

I lifted my hands to my hood, hesitated, then pushed it back so she could see my face. “I’m looking for a white stallion.”

The hostler’s eyes widened. She lowered her voice. “It’s you! I thought you’d been taken with the lady.”

I shook my head. “What happened to her? And the horse—where are they? Who were those people?”

The hostler darted a furtive glance towards the inn’s back door, then took a step closer. “That lot arrived yesterday—I heard one of them say they’d come from Arnhelm. They had a warrant from the castle. They didn’t tell me anything, not that it would be my place to ask, but I saw them put the lady in a carriage and take the northbound road.”

So they were taking Tatiana to Arnhelm. I bit the inside of my cheek, hard enough that I tasted the bitter tang of my own blood. I was right: the attack wasn’t random. Those were royal guards, and they’d been lying in wait.

“But why?” I asked, thinking aloud. It still didn’t make sense. It was me they wanted, not Tatiana.

The girl lowered her voice again. “I overheard them say the lady was the new queen—the Damarian duchess who married King Aric a few days ago.”

Understanding slid into place like a rapier into its sheath. They had mistaken Tatiana for me. We shared similar enough features that we could pass as one another, to those who didn’t know us well. The guards wouldn’t have been looking closely at her eyes in the struggle, and of the two of us, she was the one dressed like a noble. The mistake would be clear enough once they reached the castle, but for now—they thought they had me in their grasp.

Thank the seas I hadn’t mentioned Aric in my letter to Tatiana. At least the guards wouldn’t know to look for a white horse. Not unless they’d interrogated Marya. And even then, I felt sure she would give them nothing.

“And the horse?” I asked, trying to contain my desperation. My composed mask had never been so difficult to keep in place. “Did they take the white horse, too?”

The hostler’s face twisted with disgust. “They sold the stallion to a merchant. Name of Pranto.” She made a gesture that must be Gilden superstition, as if to ward off the thought. “Despicable man. He doesn’t deserve to call himself a horse trader.”

It took everything I had to keep my legs from folding. I braced myself on the wall, sick with despair.

“Are you unwell?” The hostler was peering at me, her face concerned. “Were you injured?”

I shook my head. I was, but not in the way she meant. “It’s just—a heavy blow,” I managed. “I don’t know what to do.”

I hadn’t meant to say the last, but it slipped out, a truth that slid between my ribs like a dagger. The girl’s face softened with curiosity.

“Who are you, anyway?” she asked. “You look a great deal like the other lady and you share her accent, but…” She gestured vaguely at the state of my clothes.

I realized, belatedly, that we’d been speaking in Damarian. So much for subterfuge.

“You’re right—she is the new queen. I’m her bastard sister,” I said, improvising. “I was meeting her here in secret. She sent me away when the guards arrived so they wouldn’t take me, too.”

My story wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny, especially not to anyone who knew my parents and how duty was the byword of House Liliana. But the girl was only a hostler, and a young one at that. She nodded in understanding, and her eyes lit with keen interest.

“Is it true?” she asked. “That the king is…”

I wasn’t sure what she thought the king was, but I was certain the answer wasn’t an enchanted horse. I didn’t give her the chance to finish—I knew an opening when I saw one. I leaned closer to her, and she responded like a flower to the sun, tilting her head to hear my whispered words.

“King Aric is alive,” I said. “But there’s a conspiracy to kill him, and he’s in terrible danger. Only the queen can save him.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “But the queen is…”

“Exactly,” I said, again rerouting her conclusions. “I was looking for something to help her. A possession of hers. I thought maybe she had dropped it in the stable.”

The hostler shook her head, and my heart slipped towards my toes. I shot a hopeless glance into the stable, even though I hadn’t actually been looking for any possessions of Tatiana’s. Only for an explanation of what had happened. A chance, however slim, that this could still be salvaged.

I’d gotten my answer. There was nothing here for me. I’d waited too long already; I needed to make my way to the Council and admit my failure to my parents.

“Not in the stable,” the hostler said. “I would have noticed if they’d dropped anything here. But… there may be something left behind in the lady’s rooms.”

My gaze snapped back to hers. “They weren’t searched?”

“Well, they were,” the girl admitted. “But the cleaning boy’s my older brother, and from what he told me, the soldiers just threw things around. They hardly took anything with them. He hasn’t cleared out her possessions yet, just in case…”

It took hardly any persuasion after that for the hostler to let me in the back door of the inn. Minutes later we were creeping up the servants’ stairs, she so wide-eyed with excitement I feared she would faint away, me with my hand drifting towards the dagger at my wrist. The door to Tatiana’s chamber was locked, but the hostler produced a key from a ring at her waist, turned it, and stood aside so I could look.

It was as she’d said: possessions thrown everywhere, the place ransacked. If Tatiana had brought any jewelry or coins, they were gone, but the rest was still there. I walked through the chaos slowly, lifting the filmy skirts of a discarded gown to look beneath, stepping over the glittering shards of a shattered looking glass. Her satchels were thrown on the settee, turned inside out.

A metal hilt poked out from under the bed, nearly hidden by a pile of crumpled sheets. A rapier. I stooped eagerly to pick it up, pushing the bedding aside.

No, not a rapier. Only the fire poker. Despair roiled in my stomach, more debilitating than any of my flares.

The hostler leaned in to look, her voice bright with curiosity. “What is it? Did you find something useful?”

“No,” I said, barely able to force the words out. “There’s nothing useful here at all.”