I rouse from sleep at the sound of voices outside my door. Guilt washes over me at the realization that I dozed off, wrapped in the bed quilt and propped up in the desk chair. I hurriedly shake off the stiffness in my neck and jump to my feet, preparing for the guards to open the door.
But they don’t. I hear muffled commands, punctuated with urgency. Boots tromp, brass jingles. The bars of shadow leave the crack under my door, and the keyhole glints with light again. I go to it and peer through. The hall is empty. There’s a sound of rushing footsteps, and after a moment two figures run past, clutching the weapons on their belts to keep them from jostling. Then it goes silent again.
I wait a few more minutes, but no one reappears. When my knees start to protest, I stand up.
I rap on the door.
“Hey,” I call. “Is anyone out there?”
No answer.
I test the handle. It’s still locked.
I take a few paces backward and simply stare at the door. Did all the guards go to alert the queen? How long was I asleep? I’m thirsty and tired, but that’s not much indication. My clothes are still damp, but the room is cold, so that’s not surprising either. I go to the window and peer into the sky, but it doesn’t help—it’s still dark and cloudy. A flicker of light catches my eye, and I look down into the colonnade. Lanterns bob haphazardly between the pillars, as if a group of people are heading somewhere at a run.
At a loss, I resume the pacing I’d been doing before I fell asleep, interspersed with checking the window. As time passes, lamps are lit in all the windows I can see from mine, as well as the colonnade. Twice, a bell rings from somewhere outside, but I don’t know what it means, and no one returns to my door.
After an unknown length of time, I can’t stand it anymore. I knock and call again, to no avail.
I’m locked in a room in Tolukum Palace with no food or water, and the guards that had been outside my door have gone. Something is going on outside to draw them away. Has Iano returned to the palace? Has there been an attack? Has—my body flushes with fear—has the queen decided to conduct a late-night execution?
I stand still in the middle of the room, worrying my lip. What do I have?
Not much.
They took the si-oque and my seal. I have no real clout anymore. I have my battered boots, my clothes, and a single copper coin.
More! Mama calls. You have more!
I look around the room. The lanterns from outside have brightened things a little, and my night vision is sharp from the long hours of darkness. I move to the shadowy desk and open the single drawer. I creep my fingers through the contents, which are predictable and ordinary—a few sheets of parchment, two quills, a jar of ink, a blotter, a penknife . . .
I halt on the penknife. Memories flood back of Eloise’s uncle Arlen sitting with us on the floor of the map room—he’d been supposed to be giving us a lesson in defensive cartography—showing us how to jimmy the lock on the door with a penknife and one of Eloise’s hairpins. I picked the lock on Tamsin’s door in Utzibor. If I can find a pin, I can do it here.
I grope through the rest of the drawer, but there’s nothing else apart from some wax. The washstand isn’t any more helpful, nor is the firebox. If only I had my firefly pin! I crab blindly through the room, hoping for inspiration, until I reach the door. I’m feeling along the frame, wondering if there’s a nail I could work out of place, when my fingers hit a small metal object hanging on a hook. I pause, feeling the shape of it and wondering if I can bend the hook straight, when finally my brain catches up, and I feel exceptionally stupid.
This isn’t a prison cell. It’s a guest room. Nobody locks their guests up—of course the key would be hanging by the door. The only people with keys to the outside are probably servants and guards.
I take the key off the hook, my face hot in the darkness. I nearly throw the penknife back onto the bed in disgust, but the next moment I pocket it instead.
Stealing from the palace, I think, slightly giddy and disoriented. If I wasn’t an outlaw before, I am now.
I fit the key in the lock and turn it. Carefully, I poke my head into the hall. It’s utterly silent and deserted, with only a few lamps lit at haphazard intervals. I open the door wider and step out, straining my ears for noise. But there’s nothing—not murmuring voices or quick footsteps or the distant buzz of the army of servants.
I make a hasty decision, heading down the hall toward the main atrium, hoping that if I run into the guards, I can bluster my way through with pompous royal affront at being locked up, wet and thirsty and under suspicion. But I meet no one in the atrium. Buckets and mops are strewn around, some in patches of suds. A bundle of linens lay draped over a railing, as if flung down in haste. I creep through the abandoned atrium, uneasy.
Where is everyone?
The boles of the indoor cedar forest rise at the center of the atrium. I’m in their midstory. The royal chambers are near the canopy, on the opposite side of the atrium. Without hesitating any longer, I start around the landing circling the trees. Rain drums on the dark glass, punctuated by lightning. The storm has grown.
I’m halfway around the landing, near a hallway I vaguely remember as leading to clerk offices, when a door slams. Footsteps hurry up the hallway. I tense, but as I recognize the person who appears, I sigh with relief.
“Mistress Fala! By the Light, I’m glad to see you.”
She halts as soon as she sees me, her hands busy with a rag. “Prince Veran? I’d heard you were in the palace—I was coming to find you.”
“Do you know what’s going on? I was brought in by the guards, but they disappeared, and I need to speak to the queen. It’s about Tamsin, and Prince Iano. I’m worried the guards won’t let me through . . .”
She shoves the rag into her pocket and beckons. “Come with me.”
“Thank you,” I say, holding my palms out gratefully as she heads to a service door. I follow her into a narrow, low-ceilinged hall, its bare wood and ungraceful hurricane lanterns a stark contrast to the lavish public halls. She leads me down it at a fast walk—I pant to keep up.
“What’s going on?” I ask again. “Where is everyone?”
“The Sunshield Bandit is loose in the palace,” she says without slowing down. “She broke out of the prison and is somewhere inside. The whole place is on lockdown.”
My heart practically vaults out of my chest. “She’s alive? She’s in the palace?”
“Yes, and her accomplices may be here as well. If you don’t want to be accidentally shot by the guards, you need to stay somewhere safe.”
My joy freezes into terror. “Shot?”
“Of course—the guards have orders to shoot on sight. Anyone wandering about could be working with her.” Fala’s usually kind voice is emotionless, distracted, almost snappish. She’s worried, I realize.
“But—but Lark—the Sunshield Bandit, that’s her name—she’s innocent! I mean, not innocent . . .”
“She murdered the last ashoki,” Fala says sharply.
“No, she didn’t!” My voice comes in gasps as I follow her brisk steps down a cramped staircase. “She didn’t attack Tamsin outside Vittenta—and Tamsin didn’t die, either! She’s alive. We found her, Lark and I—we rode out to Utzibor in the desert and found her, and brought her back. That’s where Iano and I went—”
Fala stops so abruptly on the landing below that I barrel into her. She takes one step to steady herself and turns to me, her face rigid with something close to shock.
“The Sunshield Bandit helped you find Tamsin?”
“Oh yes,” I say. “Tamsin was drawing bats in her ransom letters—Lark knew right away she must be at Utzibor caverns. Lark didn’t attack Tamsin—she rescued Tamsin.”
Fala blinks in astonishment. Her hands, smudged with dark polish, grip her skirt.
“Who else knows about this?” she asks.
“About Lark? Prince Iano. And Soe—a friend of Tamsin’s. No one else, I think,” I say. “So you can see why I need to speak to the queen.”
She stares a moment longer. “Yes, I do. Remarkable.” She shakes her head, and her demeanor softens. “Truly remarkable, my lord Veran. Come sit down, and we can sort this out.”
“With the queen?”
She waves me down a passage that joins with two others at the landing. I follow her into a wider hall lined with doors. Some are propped open to reveal storage closets or laundry chutes. The air smells of cedar shavings and window polish.
“Is this the way to the queen?” I ask as Fala shunts me toward the end.
“It’s too dangerous to move about the palace right now,” she says.
“But—”
“I’ll send someone to alert the queen,” she says.
“I’d really rather speak to her myself,” I protest. “This is too important—what if the guards find Lark?”
“I’ll have someone alert the guards. Your safety is more important.” We approach the end of the hallway, which opens into a vast workroom scattered with long wooden tables. Doors ring the walls, some with signs for where they lead—the grounds, the laundry, the kitchens, the Hall of the Ashoki. At the end, like an overseer’s platform at a mill, is a raised office fronted with windows. The glass panels are the biggest I’ve seen anywhere in Moquoia aside from the Tolukum atrium, and as Fala leads me up the staircase to it, I realize this must be her headquarters, the hub of servant activity in the palace. Her status as head of staff doesn’t need to be mounted on a plaque when her office boasts glass that rivals any of the windows in the rooms of noble folk.
Despite the opulent glass, the office inside is cozy and homey, with well-organized stacks of parchment on a carved oak desk. A fire smolders in the grate, throwing our flickering reflections against the large, dark windows in the opposite wall. The pattering of rain and rumble of thunder returns—she must have a view out to the grounds during the day.
“Please, sit down,” she says, guiding me to a chair beside the desk. Her motherly voice is back now that we’re safe from the danger in the main palace. I sink into the chair, grateful for the chance to sit but wishing I was closer to the fire.
“Now,” Fala says. “Tell me—the Sunshield Bandit reunited the prince and the ashoki?”
“Yes,” I say. “But we were all separated again after Lark was recaptured—he stayed behind to look for her. I’m afraid she might have been hurt or—delayed. I don’t know where—”
“The ashoki is alive,” she interrupts with certainty. “And she’s here in the palace.”
I blink. “You mean Tamsin? Not Kimela? How do you know?”
She turns a sheet of paper around on her desk, one that had been sitting out away from all the others, and slides it toward me. I peer at it, recognizing the familiar title.
“‘The Path of the Flood’ . . . that’s Tamsin’s essay,” I say. “The one she wrote for Kimela. How did you . . . did it come back with the ashoki’s coach?”
“No,” she says. “It was one of about five dozen scattered around the Bearberry Crossroads. One of my drivers brought it to me this evening. They said similar pamphlets had been distributed up and down the north-south road.”
“By the Light,” I breathe, looking at the paper again. “She did it—she made it work. Her press, I mean. Tamsin. She made multiple copies of the same essay.” I shake my head, aware I’m babbling. “But . . . how do you know she’s in the palace?”
“I was informed,” Fala says simply. And then—“You said this friend of Tamsin’s was the only other one who knows about this?”
“Soe? I think so, aside from Prince Iano,” I say.
“Does Tamsin know who attacked her outside Vittenta?”
“No,” I say, my head spinning at the jumps in topic. “All she knew was that it wasn’t the Sunshield Bandit.”
“Anything else?” she presses. “Did she recall anything else at all?”
“I . . . don’t think so. They killed her maid,” I say. “Apart from that, I don’t think she remembered anything specific.”
“She said they killed her maid?” Fala asks sharply.
“Yes . . . forgive me, I don’t remember her name.”
“Simea.”
“Yes! That was it.”
“She was sure they had killed her maid?”
“I . . . yes, that’s what she told us.” I shake my head again, trying to tame the flicker of unease needling me. Whether or not Tamsin’s maid was killed months ago doesn’t seem like the most pressing concern at the moment—unless, I suppose, Fala knew the girl personally. Still, there would be time to mourn afresh once the current danger has passed. “Mistress Fala, please—you said you’d send someone to tell the guards to stand down. We can’t let them find Lark, and if Tamsin is here, she could be in danger, too . . .”
“Yes. Of course.” Fala stands from her desk and goes to the bank of windows facing the workroom. She closes the door behind her and descends the staircase. I watch through the glass as she disappears back into the hall we came through. I take the opportunity to get up and move next to the fire, shivering and holding my numb fingers out to the flames.
There’s a tortured knot in the pit of my stomach. I’d envisioned returning to Tolukum and bringing everything to a screeching halt, but so far I feel like I’ve barely made a dent. I’m here, but . . . does the queen know? Have the guards found me missing? Or are they more focused on hunting for Lark?
Surely, if Lark broke out of prison—Lark broke out of prison! I flush with admiration. But surely, she wouldn’t stay in the palace. Why would she? She’s smart. She’d run.
But . . . Fala seems so sure she’s still in Tolukum.
Important, and urgent, Mama says.
I bite my lip.
It’s important not to be shot in the palace, I guess.
But . . .
It’s urgent that Lark and Tamsin not be shot, either.
Perhaps I can write a note and ask Fala to send it up to Queen Isme. Maybe that’s what I should have done all along, before they took my seal ring away. I turn from the fire to Fala’s desk, arranged with neat files and lit with sweet beeswax candles. There’s a blotter on her desk but no other writing utensils—I cast a quick glance through the glass, trying to shake the feeling of snooping. I open her topmost desk drawer. It’s a collection of stamps and ink, with words like Approved or Denied and a collection of si names and numbers to indicate the date. There’s even a small seal, similar to the Moquoian redwood cone, but with a concentric circle behind it. I give a small shiver . . . it reminds me of the brand on Lark’s arm, and then I realize that’s precisely what it’s supposed to be. The mark of slavery, set right into the seal of the palace staff. I close the drawer quickly, reminded uncomfortably of the Hires and how they’ve adapted that concentric circle as their own mark, too.
What a little monarchy Fala is in charge of—almost a court within a court, with its own hierarchy and laws. From the highest-paid royal attendants down to the lowliest unbonded slaves.
I yank open the next drawer down and am relieved to find ink bottles and quills. Behind them, shoved oddly toward the back of the drawer, is paper, but it’s all folded. I rifle for the top piece and have it halfway out when I realize it’s not blank. Oops. I’m sliding it back into place when the corner catches on the ink bottles, and I get a better look at the writing under the fold.
An M, scrabbled with a flourish that looks like a bat.
The hinges on the glass door swing. I slam the drawer and straighten, my heart pounding. Fala stands in the doorway, a mug in her hand.
For a moment, there’s only the sound of rain beating on glass as we stare at each other.
“I—” I begin. My mind is spinning. “Forgive me, I was looking for parchment. I thought I might write Queen Isme a note.”
Her gaze flicks to the desk, and I will myself not to look down at the second drawer. In the folds of my damp clothes, I rub my fingertips together, recognizing the rough grain of the paper, made from desert sawgrass, so different from the smooth vellum used in Moquoia.
Fala smiles at me, the same kindly expression she’s granted me so many times before—while doctoring my feet, or explaining the court to me, or guiding me out of danger.
She closes the glass door behind her. She takes out a key on a chain of others and turns the lock.
She gestures to the mug in her hand. Now that I look closer, the polish stains I saw her wiping from her skin earlier don’t look quite so much like polish.
“Tea?” she asks.