Iano, Soe, and I huddle, dripping, under a stand of tree ferns. Enna snuck us into the palace through the west guard gate. We look so bedraggled that when she explained we’re palace staff returned from a journey, her story wasn’t questioned at all. Now we cluster between the ferns and the rain-streaked glass, wringing out our clothes into the garden bed. Enna and her cadre stand a few paces away, not doing anything to lessen the strange sight we make—three ragged travelers gathered conspiratorially at the edge of the public halls, flanked by armed guards and a wet coydog. Rat has already rolled in the rich mulch of the indoor gardens and is now digging under a doomed ficus.
“The problem is, we don’t have enough time,” Iano whispers, raking his wet hair behind his ears. “It won’t be long before someone recognizes us, and word gets to my mother.”
Or our enemy, I sign grimly.
“Right,” he says. “So, the question is—what do we do first? Find Fala? Look for Lark? Ask about Veran?”
I purse my lips. Lark is most important.
Soe stirs. “But this enemy of yours—if you can’t identify them, you don’t know who to trust, or avoid.”
“So should we go to Fala first?” Iano asks.
What about your mother? I ask. If we go to her right away, she could stop any execution order and buy us more time.
“Or it might give your enemy more time to strategize, or get away,” Soe points out. “If they hear you’re in the palace, it takes away our element of secrecy, and surprise.”
Iano rubs his forehead worriedly. “If we could just take care of even one of our unknowns, it could make all the difference—who our enemy is, whether Veran’s here, whether Lark is okay . . .”
In a moment so perfectly scripted it couldn’t have been carried out better on a stage, lightning flashes across the glass, the branches above us shake, and the Sunshield Bandit drops like a meteor into our midst.
Soe shrieks. Iano stumbles backward and hits the glass wall. I clap my hand over my mouth. Enna and her cadre all draw their weapons and charge toward us. Rat, however, erupts from his progress on the ficus and leaps into Lark’s arms. She grapples with him, squeezing him tightly.
“You’re here—you’re alive!” Iano exclaims, his back and palms flat against the glass. He quickly straightens and waves at Enna as she reaches us. “No, it’s fine, she’s fine—I just . . .” He shakes his head at Lark. “I swear every time I think you can’t surprise me . . .”
“That is why you could never catch me,” Lark replies.
He draws in a breath of patience but gestures at Enna again. “It’s fine. Truly.”
We’d told Enna about Lark’s innocence—at least in the current affairs—on the road, but the guard still keeps her gaze warily on us as she guides her cadre back to their lookout post.
I turn to Lark, not bothering to hide my admiration. You’re not in prison, I sign. What did you do, kick down the door?
She grimaces. “I maybe attacked the cell guard and stole her keys.”
Iano groans.
Lark looks around. “Where’s Veran?”
“We don’t know,” Soe says.
“You don’t know?” she repeats.
“He was making for the palace last we saw him, but that was two days ago.”
“Alone?” she asks.
“Alone,” Iano confirms.
“We couldn’t talk him out of it,” Soe says.
Lark’s eyes glitter above her bandanna, but before she can lay into us, the trees rustle again. With much more timidity and less fanfare than Lark, another figure comes clambering down the trunk, breathing fast. She drops to the ground and then freezes, eyeing all of us. She’s wearing the plain, dark uniform of the palace staff.
“This is Irena,” Lark says. “She helped me get past the prison guards, and find you. She will not get in trouble for this,” she says fiercely, turning her glare on Iano. “If something bad happens to her, I’ll kill you, I swear.”
He gives her a pained look. “You have to try to stop threatening death to people.”
“I will when they stop doing it to me,” she replies flatly. “Promise me she won’t get in trouble.”
“I promise, but listen, we still don’t have answers,” Iano says. “Until we know who organized the attack on Tamsin, none of us are actually safe.”
“It wasn’t Kobok,” Lark says.
How do you know? I ask, at the same time that Iano and Soe voice the same thing.
She shifts. “I asked him.”
“You asked him?” Iano says incredulously.
“Yes, very nicely,” she says without any hint of amusement. “He says he didn’t make Tamsin’s fake si bracelet. He said it was left in his room. It made him panic—he thought someone was threatening him about Port Iskon.”
Did you find out where Port Iskon is? I sign quickly.
“It’s not a place,” Lark says, an ugly edge to her voice. “It’s the name of an old black market ring. They started using it on Alcoran captives’ papers fifteen years ago to sidestep bond limits—and to cover up the abduction of the Lumeni princess.”
My stomach flips. Silence rings among us, our faces all frozen in shock and horror. Iano struggles to find a response.
“How is that possible?” he begins. “That kind of corruption . . .”
Lark whirls on him. “I swear I will kill you,” she repeats, “if you can still defend him.”
He ruffles in irritation, and to my surprise, he draws himself up, throwing his shoulders back in a mirror of hers. In a flash, she shifts her weight, dropping Rat and squaring toward Iano, fists clenched. Dammit. We have barely minutes to spare, and I’m about to have to break up a fist fight between the prince and the Sunshield Bandit.
“Hey,” I say, putting a palm on both of their shoulders.
But Iano doesn’t break Lark’s gaze. “My esteemed political ally,” he says in his addressing-the-court voice. “My lady princess of Lumen Lake and representative of the Allied East, I was going to say that that kind of corruption is grounds for prison, indefinitely.”
My gaze goes from Lark’s sparking eyes to his. Lark pauses, digesting his words, and then her lips bend into a half grin. She holds up her palm. Stiffly, with his chin serenely raised—but with a definite twitch at the corner of his own lips—he slaps his palm against hers. She resolves it into a firm handshake.
“Finally, something we agree on, outlaw to outlaw,” she says.
I let out my breath and drop my hands from their shoulders. Congratulations. Now—our plan.
“Our plan,” Soe echoes drily. “So far we know that our enemy probably isn’t Minister Kobok, and that Lark isn’t dead.”
“Yet,” Lark says.
We still don’t know about Veran, and we still need to talk to Fala and the queen, I say. At my side, Irena stares blankly at my fingers.
“She’s signing,” Soe explains to her. “Talking with her hands.”
But Irena doesn’t take her eyes away. “I beg your pardon, but where did you get that si-oque?”
I twist my wrist to show the amber cabochons. This? It’s mine.
Soe translates for her.
“But . . . if it’s here, on your wrist, what’s the one in the Hall of the Ashoki?” Irena asks. “In the display case beside the empty pedestal? It looks practically the same.”
We all pause for a moment.
“The forgery,” Iano says. “It must be. They must have put it in your display case, Tamsin.”
“We should get it,” Lark says. “If we can show it with Tamsin’s real one, it proves someone has been working against the country.”
“And,” Soe points out, “it could draw out our enemy—once they hear we’re in the palace, they might go to the Hall of the Ashoki to retrieve it.”
We’re quiet a moment, thinking.
“Okay,” I say. I gesture for Lark to repeat my words, so I know everyone understands me plainly. Here is our plan. Iano—you go to your mother with the guards. Tell her everything, and stop the hunt for Lark. Soe—you go find Fala. Bring Irena. Tell her we need to talk to her right away, to ask who she suspects may be with the Hires, and if anyone disappeared at the same time as Poia. Lark and I will go to the Hall of the Ashoki. If our enemy shows themselves, Lark can detain them.
She winces as she finishes translating. “Not for long.”
By then we’ll have the guards back on our side, I assure her.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she says.
“Where can I find Fala?” Soe asks. “Does she have a . . . room, or an office?”
“She’s in records,” Irena says, so quietly I almost don’t hear her. “At least, she was earlier.”
“That’s where her office is?” Soe asks.
“Oh no, her office is in the staff corridors, at the head of the main workroom. She was in records to validate something—she’s had to do that sort of thing since Beskin left.”
We all go still.
“Beskin?” Iano repeats.
Beskin was in records? I ask, my fingers fumbling.
“Yes, but she left,” Irena says again.
“Was she a Hire?” Lark asks.
Irena’s eyes drop, and she fiddles with the sleeve that covers her slave brand. “I don’t rightly know. But it wouldn’t surprise me. She wouldn’t be the only one on staff.”
Iano turns to Soe. “This makes Fala even more crucial. Tell her we need to see her immediately.”
She nods and joins Irena. I move toward Lark, but to my surprise, she doesn’t budge.
“Wait,” she says. “We’re still forgetting Veran. We don’t have any idea where he is?” She looks at Irena. “Have you heard anything about him?”
“Who?” she asks.
“Veran Greenbrier—foreign prince with green eyes and a hero complex?” she says. “Real pretty hair?”
I snort, but Lark is being serious. Irena looks perplexed, so Iano adds, “The translator from the Eastern delegation.”
“Sorry,” she says. “I haven’t heard anything. Though the guards did bring a ring with a foreign symbol on it up to records. That’s what Fala had to validate.”
“A ring?” Lark says quickly. “A silver one? With a bug on it?”
“I don’t know,” Irena whispers, twisting her hands—she clearly wants to have better answers.
I touch Lark’s sleeve. I don’t think we can worry about Veran right now.
She pivots to me, gripping her sword hilt. “I worry about that idiot constantly. Why should they have his seal ring if he’s not in trouble? What if they’re trying to identify his body?”
“Soe can check to see if it was really his, when she goes up to records with Irena,” Iano says. “But Tamsin’s right, Lark—we can’t worry about Veran. We have to pinpoint our enemy first.”
Her mouth twists. “And if our enemy decides he’s a target, too?”
“I don’t think they will,” he assures her. “If the guards really did have his seal ring, and validated it, they’ll know who he is—if he’s here, he’s being well-guarded. He’s safer than we are.”
Lark grinds her teeth, but I bump her elbow. Please, Lark. We’ll help Veran soon—but we can’t if we don’t catch our enemy, and we’re running out of time.
She blows out a frustrated breath, but finally nods. “All right. The Hall of the Ashoki.”
Soe turns to follow Irena. “See you all soon.”
Iano clasps my shoulder as he moves past me. “I’ll meet you at the Hall. Be safe.”
“Pff,” I reply. No time to be safe.
“Try anyway,” he says drily. He looks to Lark. “You, too. We can finish this thing tonight—nobody else has to get hurt.”
She pauses, and then stiffly bends down and gathers Rat in her arms. She straightens and turns to Iano. “Take Rat with you. Find a safe place to put him—give him some water, and somewhere to lie down. I am afraid if he’s with us in the palace, the guards will shoot him.”
To my utter astonishment, Iano accepts the damp, muddy dog and bundles him in his own arms, his face grave at the responsibility just entrusted to him. “I will.”
Lark presses her forehead once against Rat’s, and then, with another sigh, turns back to me. With that, we part ways, our footsteps underscored by the drumming of rain and the dwindling descant of Rat’s anxious cries.