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TIYUNG

CITY OF TAMNEKI, YUSAN

I sip tea at the Palm Teahouse in Tamneki, watching the rain fall in the empty courtyard where Sora and I first met Count Bay Chin. I’m not sure why I came here, aside from the fact that I love any place that reminds me of her.

As I drink, I try to make sense of what happened at Qali Palace just a few bells ago.

My mother is one of the most levelheaded people I have ever met.

She is neither hysterical nor prone to overreacting.

When she told me to flee, I grabbed my horse from the stable boy.

She loudly called me a “charming fake” to Rayna, Sun-ye’s sister, as she turned to walk back into Qali.

I sped away from the palace as fast as I could. I have no doubt that she just saved my life, but why was I in danger?

Am I a fugitive like the rest of them? No. My father spread word of my death when he put a bounty on them, so perhaps the fact that I am alive is too inconvenient for him. I am still his son, though—his only child. So what just happened?

I nurse my pot of tea because I’m not sure where else to go, and all I have for money is a single silver mun I received as change earlier. Tea in this expensive house will cost half of that.

What do I do now? I worry the edge of the varnished table with my fingers. I have no money, no supplies, no connections, no way to figure out where Sora and the others are. I hang my head in my hands. Things were so much easier when I was traveling with Hana.

Hana.

I raise my head as I remember the strange look on her face when I said we were friends and she replied, We’ll see .

Her distant air today. Whatever just happened, she’s involved in this somehow.

Those messages she was sending as we traveled.

I didn’t see what she wrote or who she sent them to. What did she say? What did she do?

I curl my hand in a fist on my lap, now certain she betrayed me. Why did I even trust her? My family tortured her and her brother, and she’s spent her life hating us. She didn’t ever owe me loyalty. I’m just a fool.

But if she wasn’t helping me because I freed Nayo, then who was she working for?

Not my father, certainly. She could have still been a spy for the king, as Joon did grant her a new life and high status as spymaster.

Or maybe she was working for someone else entirely.

With Dal and Bay Chin both dead, the only other man powerful enough to make it worth her time would be Rune.

Was she also a spy for Rune? Is that how she knew the others weren’t in Rahway?

Something about it feels true. I sit up straight. The alliance between Rune and my father was only ever surface deep to counteract the powerful northeast, but those alliances are no longer needed. Not with nearly everyone dead. If she is a spy for Rune, what does that mean for Sora and the others?

What does it mean for me?

I finish my tea and head toward the messenger house.