Page 35

When wakes up in the summer castle on the second day, it takes a moment for her to remember why she’s there, just as it did the day before. She stares up at the stone ceiling, the events of the past few days trickling back to her—her mother’s instructions to find Gideon and Reid before Bairre and kill them, her realization that Levi the servant is King Leopold, the understanding that she’ll have to kill him, too, in order for her mother’s plans to work. For her plans to work, she reminds herself.

It doesn’t bring her any peace.

The sun is streaming through the window near her bed, telling that she’s already slept later than she should have, but all she wants to do is pull the covers over her head, bury her face in a pillow, and shut out the world, her mother included.

I need your help, Daph. The words from Sophronia’s last letter echo through her mind, as clearly as if Sophronia had spoken them aloud. You must have seen how wrong she is now, how wrong we are to do her bidding.

When first received that letter, she thought her sister was being ridiculous. Of course their mother wasn’t wrong, hadn’t asked anything of them that wasn’t for the betterment of Vesteria. did believe that with all her heart, most of her believes it still. But there is another part—just a sliver of her—that wonders if Sophronia might have been right, if what the empress is asking her to do is wrong, if she is wrong for going along with it.

No, she thinks, sitting up in bed and shaking her head, forcing herself awake. No, her mother said that as long as the House of Bayard continued to live, it put her and her family’s lives at risk. It doesn’t matter that Reid and Gideon are innocent, it doesn’t matter that Leopold truly loved Sophronia, none of that matters. They are a threat, whether they mean to be or not, and can’t lose anyone else she loves.

Despite the fire burning in the fireplace, the room is chilly, and changes from her nightgown into a plain wool dress quickly, without bothering to call for help. She wraps herself in her warmest wool cloak and dons thick socks and boots. She passes a servant girl carrying a tray set with a cup of steaming tea to Cliona’s room and stops her to ask where Bairre is. The servant directs her to the stables on the west side of the castle’s grounds, so heads there. She doesn’t have to search for him for long—Bairre is standing just inside the stable doors, talking with two young stableboys.

“You’re sure?” Bairre asks them, looking from one boy to the other with a serious expression.

“Yes, Your Highness,” one boy says. would guess that he’s around thirteen, with a wildly freckled face and a mess of sandy-brown hair. “I swear on the stars, that’s what happened.”

“What happened?” asks as she approaches.

Bairre turns toward her, and despite the discomfort of their conversation the day before, his eyes brighten. “, the princes—they’re nearby.”

“Oh?” asks, unsure whether it’s thrill or dread prickling at her skin at the news. She doesn’t know if she wants an answer.

Bairre misreads the conflicting emotions on her face as skepticism. “I’m serious, it’s a real lead,” he says before looking back at the boys. “Tell her.”

The other boy, who looks younger than the first, with darker hair and ruddy cheeks, turns to with animated eyes. “There’s a group of men camping in the forest. Some of them have strange accents.”

glances at Bairre. It may be a lead, but it’s one she needs to follow without him, which means convincing him it isn’t worth looking into. “That doesn’t mean anything,” she says, shrugging. “We’re near the sea—plenty of travelers come and go, I’d imagine. Did you see any boys with them, near your age?”

“No, no one has,” the younger boy says.

“You see?” says to Bairre. “There’s no indication that it’s anything other than—”

“Tell her about the coats,” Bairre interrupts.

“The coats?” asks.

“Oh, the coats,” the older boy says eagerly. “Well, my nan’s neighbor’s cousin’s friend owns a shop in town and she said that one of the men came in asking for two coats that would fit boys around twelve and fourteen.”

“Twelve and fourteen?” asks, her heartbeat picking up. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” the older boy says. “I remember because I’m thirteen now, but big for my age, and my mother brought in my old coat to sell to them. She said they paid more than the coat was worth, but they seemed desperate.”

and Bairre exchange a look. Gideon and Reid were wearing coats when they vanished, but they weren’t nearly sturdy enough for the weather this far northeast, especially if they’re camping outside.

“Thank you,” Bairre says, reaching into his pocket to produce an aster coin for each boy. “Now, could you saddle up the horses?”

The boys take the coins quickly and scurry off toward the stables. watches them go, her mind scrabbling for a plan.

“It’s likely nothing,” she says to Bairre, though she has difficulty sounding convincing, even to her own ears.

“And if it isn’t?” Bairre asks, shaking his head. “I have a good feeling about this, . And I’d like for you to come along. I could use your help here.”

Her help rescuing Gideon and Reid, not killing them. She swallows down a protest. If her mother were here, she would tell to go along with Bairre, to use his lead and his tracking skills, and then do what needs to be done. It will be easy enough to lose him in the forest, to find the princes on her own. She has her daggers on her—it will be easy enough to slit their throats. They won’t see her as a threat until it’s too late. She’ll make it quick and painless. There’s no need for them to suffer. And when it’s done, she’ll scream and act like she found them dead already, at the hands of whoever kidnapped them. Bairre will never suspect her. He can’t suspect her.

That is what her mother would tell her to do, so even though the thought turns her stomach, that is what she’ll do.

“I’m ready to go when you are,” she tells him, forcing a smile that feels like the biggest lie she’s told him.

“Brilliant,” he says, returning her smile. “But I’m not sure what we’ll be walking into, so I sent a page inside to tell the others to get ready just before you came out.”

does a quick mental tally—it will be more difficult to find the boys on her own if Cliona, Haimish, and Rufus are there as well.

“Does that include the servant and the guards?” she asks.

Bairre gives her a look. “Levi, Niels, and Evain,” he says. “And yes—helpful as the stableboys were, neither knew how many men were in the encampment. Better safe than sorry, particularly if there are children’s lives at stake.”

“Of course,” says, her stomach knotting up further.

—

It takes a little over an hour to reach the edge of the Trevail Forest, and Bairre leads their party farther north than where their group exited the forest the day before, explaining that the stableboys told him the encampment was close to the Tack River.

“It’ll be better to go on foot, to avoid being overheard,” Bairre says, pulling his horse to a stop and dismounting. and the others follow his lead.

“Levi, Niels, Evain, you three head around the north side, the rest of us will come at them from the south. Everyone fan out to cover as much ground as possible,” he says. “If there’s any sign of the boys, keeping them safe is the first priority. Do not attack if you’re outnumbered, note the location and get help first. Only kill when absolutely necessary—I have questions that need answering.”

The others nod, and can’t help but be impressed by the authority with which Bairre gives commands. Since he begrudgingly took up the role of prince after Cillian’s death, he’s seemed uninterested in anything to do with ruling, though now knows that is at least in part because of his alignment with the rebels, but seeing him now, like this, she realizes that whether or not he ever wears a crown, he has the makings of a strong leader.

They find a tall oak tree to tie the horses to, then go their separate ways. As soon as has put enough distance between herself and the others, she draws her daggers, holding one in each hand as she proceeds, searching for any sign of human life in the woods. She keeps her steps quiet and her movements quick—if the princes are, in fact, nearby, she needs to find them first.

As she walks, she idly twirls the daggers in her hands—a nervous habit, she realizes, though she tells herself there is nothing to be nervous about. She knows what she has to do, and it will hardly be the first time she’s killed someone. Everything she knows about Gideon and Reid tells her that killing them won’t even present a challenge. But in the deathly quiet of the woods, Sophronia’s voice in ’s head is getting louder.

You must have seen how wrong she is now, how wrong we are to do her bidding.

is so caught up in the voice that she isn’t sure anymore if she’s been walking for minutes or hours, though the position of the sun in the sky peeking through the canopy of trees tells her it can’t have been too long. Thirty minutes? Forty-five?

“Gideon, stop.” A voice speaking Temarinian cuts through her thoughts, and she goes still, thrill and dread doing battle in her again once more. She knows that voice. Reid. They’re here. And even more surprising…Reid doesn’t sound afraid or upset, he sounds like he’s barely holding back laughter.

“Hush now, both of you,” another voice says, also in Temarinian without any trace of another accent. The voice is male and unrecognizable, but not unfriendly.

creeps closer, holstering her daggers and reaching instead for her bow, drawing an arrow as she crests a ridge of snow, keeping low to avoid being spotted.

She takes in the scene before her—a small campsite with three tents and the ashes of a dead fire. Gideon and Reid are on the far side of the camp from where is hiding, lobbing snowballs at each other, while a young man sits on a boulder, his face in profile. can see enough to note that he’s handsome, but his expression is twisted and surly. trains her arrow on him—she’ll need to eliminate him before the boys, but if she shoots now, Gideon and Reid will scream, alerting the rest of ’s party to their whereabouts, and she can’t have that.

“How much longer are we going to stay here, Ansel?” Gideon asks, stopping the snowball fight to approach the man.

Ansel. The name triggers a vague memory for , but she can’t remember where she knows it from.

“Another day, at least,” he says, shaking his head. “The weather is keeping all of the ships docked for now. No one wants to risk crossing the Whistall Sea in anything but ideal conditions.”

Gideon lets out a loud sigh. “But Leopold—”

“Your brother won’t want you getting caught in a whirlpool—he can wait a few days longer,” Ansel says.

’s skin prickles as she processes the information—Ansel, whoever he is, is lying to Gideon and Reid, promising them that he’s taking them to Leopold. But why would they believe him?

Eugenia mentioned an Ansel, she remembers. It was the name of the boy Violie was supposed to have been conspiring with, who led the riot in Kavelle. The realization causes anger to spark, but that doesn’t make sense—why would Gideon and Reid trust him?

“Leo!” Reid’s voice causes all attention to snap to him, then to the figure coming into the clearing from the opposite side of the woods. Levi, or rather, Leopold. One and the same. moves her arrow to him, then back to Ansel. After a second of internal debate, she keeps it there.

“Get behind me, both of you,” Leopold snaps, his eyes trained on Ansel and the sword in his hands held in a white-knuckled grip.

Wide-eyed, Reid does as he says, but before Gideon can do the same, Ansel grabs him, holding him as a shield and pressing the blade of a dagger to the boy’s neck.

could solve all of this with a few arrows—one to Ansel, who would cut Gideon’s throat as he died, then one to Leopold’s throat, then finally Reid’s. She knows her aim well enough to know that she’ll make the shots, but she can’t fire three arrows before someone screams, and when the rest of the party arrives to find her arrows buried in them, won’t be able to answer those questions.

She lets out a whisper of a curse. There is nothing to do but wait, for now, and watch.

“You should be dead,” Ansel says to Leopold, the words harsh and biting. “If that bitch hadn’t—”

“Sophronia was smarter than you,” Leopold interrupts. At the sound of her sister’s name, ’s hold on the bow tightens.

“Leo, help,” Gideon says, his voice coming out a whimper. Even from a distance, can see Ansel’s blade pressing into the skin of Gideon’s neck—not yet drawing blood but close.

“Let him go, Ansel,” Leopold says, the words coming out level.

“Don’t think I will, no,” Ansel replies, taking a step backward, then another, and pulling Gideon with him. “I’m going to leave, with Gideon.”

“Where are you taking him?” Leopold asks, and it strikes as a profoundly ridiculous question, until she realizes why he’s asking it. Leopold’s eyes flick toward her for just an instant. He knows she’s there, and he’s buying her time.

“My employer is paying me well to keep that quiet,” Ansel replies.

“The empress, you mean?” Leopold asks, and swallows.

No. That can’t be. Not because her mother isn’t capable of kidnapping the princes, but because she ordered to kill them.

“The empress and I parted ways when she sent her men to kill me after I did exactly what she told me to,” Ansel says.

“Kill Sophie, you mean,” Leopold says.

’s blood turns to ice and she realizes exactly what Leopold is doing—not just trying to buy time but trying to turn her against her mother. As if she would trust the words of this stranger.

“Sophie,” Ansel says, the name dripping with derision. “Would you like to hear her last words? What she said after you abandoned her—”

“I didn’t,” Leopold snaps, but Ansel ignores him.

“She sobbed for days, absolutely heartbroken. It very nearly made me pity her,” he says.

is so absorbed in the words, in the sheer wrongness of them, that she almost doesn’t notice Ansel’s free hand behind his back, pulling another dagger from the scabbard at his hip. The way he’s holding Gideon means that Leopold doesn’t see the movement at all, doesn’t realize that Ansel is lifting his hand to throw it—

releases the arrow before she can think better of it and it whistles through the air, just past Gideon’s head, before embedding itself in Ansel’s neck.

Gideon screams, Reid screams, but Leopold and simply watch as Ansel crumples to the ground, dying with nothing more than a gurgle.

And then Leopold looks at her and looks back, but there is no time to speak because already she can hear approaching footsteps from several different directions. clambers over the snowbank and rushes to get to him first.

“You’ll stay Levi the servant awhile longer,” she tells him before looking at Gideon and Reid, both shaken up from the ordeal. “You must pretend not to know him, all right? For just a little while.”

They nod, just as Bairre, Cliona, and Rufus enter the clearing.

“What happened?” Bairre asks, his eyes seeming to brush over every inch of , searching for injury, before he takes in the rest of the scene—Gideon and Reid alive and well, the dead man with ’s arrow in his throat.

“Levi distracted him, and I took my shot,” she says, shrugging as if it were that simple, though she supposes, technically, it is the truth.

“Well done,” Bairre says, nodding at her, then at Leopold, before looking at the boys. “Let’s get you two back to the castle and get word to your mother—she’s been worrying herself sick.”

At that, ’s and Leopold’s eyes meet once again and she knows that the last thing they need is for Eugenia to be kept informed.

As they make their way out of the woods once more, realizes how much simpler things would have been if she’d let Ansel throw the dagger at Leopold before killing him. Leopold would have died, and if she’d aimed right, Ansel could have had time to kill Gideon before he’d gone too, leaving only Reid left for to kill. But she can’t help but hear the exchange between Leopold and Ansel again and again in her mind.

Maybe she’s made things more difficult for herself, but now, at least, Leopold will live long enough to answer her questions.