Larkin woke to the sounds of a baby crying. She lay in bed, orienting herself to the foaming blue lace, the dolls staring at her with unblinking eyes. She waited for Harben and Raeneth to shush their baby, but his wails continued unabated.

She hadn’t slept much. Between the nightmares and her racing thoughts, she never did anymore. Unable to bear it another second, she hauled herself out of the bed. She followed the cries to the last door on the right at the end of the hallway. Inside was a small room, comparatively. It was perfectly round—the circular room above the parlor, then. The walls had been painted with animals.

In the center of the room was a crib. Kyden pumped his fists and his legs and screamed. Larkin backed into the hallway and opened the door across from the nursery. A mussed bed, but Harben and Raeneth were nowhere to be seen.

Sighing in exasperation, Larkin marched back to him, picked him up, and bounced him. He would only be a week or two younger than Brenna. His swaddling was dirty. She laid him out on a table, unwrapped him, set the dirty swaddling in a bucket, and washed him. He calmed as she wrapped him back up and laid him against her shoulder.

She patted his little bottom while he stuck his fist in his mouth and sucked. Despite having different mothers, he looked like Brenna—the same chubby cheeks and round face. The same pouting lips—a white callous on the top from nursing.

Her half brother. She stroked the back of her finger down his smooth cheek. “I’m sorry, baby.” Sorry she had ever hated him. Sorry she wouldn’t be there to make sure he was cared for the way she had for her sisters.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor behind her. Her father’s laughter. Larkin started to set Kyden down. He wailed in protest. She didn’t want to make him cry, but she didn’t want to be caught with him either.

Before she could decide, Raeneth pushed open the door, her hair damp and long down her back. Her round eyes in her round face widened as she took in Larkin holding her baby.

Larkin crossed the room and settled Kyden into his mother’s arms. “He was fussing. I changed him. He’s hungry.” Larkin pushed past her to see Harben peering at her from within the room across the hall, his damp hair curling around his ears. She ducked her head and hurried toward her own room.

“I— Thank you,” Raeneth called after her.

Larkin shut the door and leaned against it. She looked up at the ceiling. For her mother’s sake, it felt disloyal not to hate her father, Raeneth, and Kyden. They had wronged her and her family so thoroughly … The pain of it still throbbed in Larkin’s chest.

A knock at her door startled her.

“Miss, the water is heated in the basement if you’d like a turn showering,” Tinsy said.

So that’s what Harben and Raeneth had been doing. Showering. Together. Larkin could see them suddenly—wet and naked and in each other’s arms. Gah! She shook her head violently. If only she could scrub it from her brain forever.

“Miss?” Tinsy called.

Right. The feast was tonight. After Iniya got them into the castle to look for the journal and ahlea amulet. “Yes,” Larkin blurted. “I’m coming.”

“I’ll be waiting with towels, and we’ll do your hair,” Tinsy said. “Would you prefer to bring down the purple dress, or shall I?”

“I’ll bring it.”

An hour later, her oiled hair was smoothed back in an elegant updo. Layers and layers of makeup covered every one of her freckles. The high-backed dress and gloves hid her sigils. The pillow had been stuffed under the dress to mimic Nesha’s pregnancy. She was already sweltering.

Larkin didn’t recognize the woman staring back at her, wasn’t even sure she liked her. But the dress … She very much liked the dress. Floral-embossed leather crisscrossed the bust and the waist, the buckles gold and beautifully cast. Other buckles went around her arms. Tinsy fussed with the sleeves so they draped just so, and then she belted the overskirt around her waist. Leather and gold panels fell just so.

Tinsy placed a velvet hat with a brown feather on her head and picked up the breakfast tray. “Iniya will be waiting, miss.”

Larkin stood and smoothed her hands down the soft velvet.

Tinsy rested a hand on her wrists. “Good luck, miss.”

Surprised by the sudden show of emotion, Larkin couldn’t think of a proper response before the girl fled. She made her way into the mansion and crossed the hallway. Harben and Iniya were indeed waiting beside the front door. As was Raeneth, the baby in a basket at her feet.

Larkin still didn’t know why the woman was coming. “Isn’t this a little dangerous for an infant?”

Raeneth picked up the basket, her expression determined.

“You think either of them will be safe if we’re caught?” Iniya said. “No, we succeed or fail together.” She eyed Larkin critically. “Let me see the limp.”

Larkin turned her foot inward and stepped on the outer blade, drawing her steps short to mimic the way Nesha walked with her club foot.

Iniya nodded in approval. “A trollop and a cripple besides.”

Larkin gritted her teeth as she came to stand beside them. “Perhaps if you hadn’t turned your back on us, we wouldn’t have been forced to make such choices.”

Iniya raised a perfectly arched, painted-on eyebrow. “Are you defending the girl now? She nearly had you killed.”

Larkin turned away as shame, humiliation, and hurt caught fire inside her.

Harben glowered at her. “Be civil or be silent, Mother,” he snapped.

Iniya harrumphed.

“Have you any word of Humbent?” Larkin asked.

“We won’t for a few days.” Iniya turned—the click, click, click announcing her retreat. “Oben is waiting.”

Larkin squared herself. If someone realized their deceit, they would pay with their lives. She flared her magic and muttered to herself, “But I’ll take down as many of them as I can before I go.”

Harben turned back to her. “What was that?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.” She limped past him. At the landing, she paused. For once, it was a lovely day. Brilliant sunlight filtered through the spring-green leaves. The bark was black, the moss growing on the north side even brighter than the leaves.

Larkin could have grown up here. Grown up in the beautiful house with the trees and the servants. Instead, she’d been born and raised in the mud of her family’s fields and her father’s steadily increasing drunken rages.

Dressed in a brown jerkin and wearing a guard’s sword at his hip, Tam leaned against a tree. He nodded to Larkin and hopped on the back of the carriage. Larkin felt the tiniest bit of tension drain away. She vacillated a moment before sitting beside her grandmother. Her father sat opposite, Raeneth coming in last. Oben handed the basket up to them.

Raeneth held it in her lap. Kyden sucked his tongue in his sleep, his mouth puckering adorably. Larkin looked away. There was no sense in becoming attached to the child. She never should have held him.

Oben shut the door, and the carriage lurched into motion. Larkin leaned out the window to keep from looking at any of them.

Iniya huffed in disgust. “Stop gawking.”

Larkin ignored her.

“Remember what we’re here for,” Iniya said. “The book and the tomb. As soon as we’ve accomplished those goals, we leave.”

Larkin ignored her as the carriage retraced the steps that she and Tam had made only two days before. This time, the palace’s red doors were thrown open wide. Dozens of people streamed in. One little girl skipped ahead of the rest, her hair a blonde halo around her head. She reminded Larkin so much of Sela—the old Sela—that tears formed in her eyes.

She missed her mother and her little sisters. A part of her missed Nesha too—or at least the friend she used to be. And Kyden. What kind of life would he have? Groomed by their cruel grandmother to become an even crueler king or cast aside like offal. But short of kidnapping him, Larkin wasn’t sure what could be done about it.

The crowd bottlenecked just beyond the door. Oben shouted, and people scattered, casting curious looks their way—probably trying to catch sight of the Mad Queen.

After everything Iniya had been through, could anyone blame her for going a little mad?

Gritting her teeth, Larkin studied the wide courtyard. Food vendors lined three sides of the curtain wall. Games had been set up all around, with men competing at log tossing. Children played horseshoes. Acrobats flipped across a stage, hangman’s nooses shifting in the wind behind them. The scent of roasted nuts and maple sugar filled the air.

Lording over it all was the magnificent palace, with its whitewashed walls and copper turrets. Wide stone steps angled toward the door, which were inlaid with copper crescents bisected by a thick line. These doors—red like the outer ones—were also thrown open.

Carriages lined the white gravel. The mass of people in the courtyard did not come within a dozen paces of the gravel, did not so much as look toward the palace. It was as if that white-gravel line demarcated two worlds, and one could never touch the other.

Despite the warmth, Larkin shivered. “You lived here?” she asked Iniya. The woman’s house had been overwhelming enough. This … this was so far beyond anything Larkin could imagine living in.

“My father’s palace.” Iniya’s voice trembled, betraying her.

The carriage lurched to a stop. Oben opened the door. Larkin followed Iniya out. Harben, Raeneth, and Kyden came last. Tam jumped down from the back of the coach and stepped up beside Larkin. “Ready to break the curse?”

“And if we don’t, at least we can take some druids down with us.”

He grinned. “I have taught you well.”

As one, they climbed the narrowing stairs. Two druids waited for them at the top. The one with pretty blue eyes bowed. The other had a sour expression and examined his list. “Lady Iniya, I’m afraid I only have you down for one guest.”

Iniya shot them a haughty expression. “Surely you can find a few more chairs for the Hero of Hamel, my very own granddaughter.”

Both druids’ gazes whipped to Larkin.

Larkin lowered her eyes, exactly as Nesha would have done.

“The Hero of Hamel,” Blue Eyes said in awe.

“Garrot didn’t send word of his …” Sour Face trailed off awkwardly. Because Nesha was not Garrot’s wife. Cripples couldn’t marry. “Nesha,” he finished lamely.

“And her guard, of course,” Iniya said.

Sour Face looked Tam over. “Guard?”

Tam rested his fist over his heart and bowed. “I escorted Nesha to the safety of her grandmother’s tender care”—Blue Eyes choked on a laugh and Sour Face glared at him—“and will continue my duties until Garrot returns to her side.”

Iniya looked Blue Eyes over as if memorizing his features for future retribution. He stiffened, clearly worried. He should be more than worried. He should be terrified.

“I’m sure we can find a place for Nesha. Your guard will have to wait along the wall with the servants.” The druid waved down a boy and whispered something to him. The boy turned wide eyes to Larkin before scampering back inside the palace. Sour Face waved them on.

They stepped into a grand foyer with copper inlaid in the floor. From the high, lead-glass windows, brilliant shafts of sunlight speared across the room, sending dazzling rainbow sparks across the milling people. But for all the grandeur, the space was surprisingly bare. The faintest dark squares hinted at paintings or tapestries that had once graced the walls. Family heirlooms, surely. What had the druids done with them?

A servant showed them into an enormous dining room, one wall all floor-to-ceiling windows. Fireplaces graced each end, the interior wall as bare as the one before. On one end, a single table had been laid out upon a platform. Long tables had been set with plain tin dishes. Tin. As if the druids wanted to prove they were humble.

Ridiculous. Taking down the paintings and eating off tin didn’t change the fact that they were in a palace—or that the Idelmarch served the druids, not the other way around.

The room was already filled to overflowing with druids in their black robes and their equally dour wives. Servants rushed about to seat everyone—it appeared Larkin’s group had nearly been late.

Iniya clearly planned it that way, as a hush fell across the room at their entrance. The druids’ gazes lingered the longest on Larkin, whether because her purple dress, with its embossed leather, stood out in a room full of black or because of the false pregnancy, Larkin wasn’t sure. All at once, Larkin remembered that this was not the first time she’d faked a pregnancy. She had to suppress the sudden urge to laugh.

Everyone stared, but no one approached—Nesha was a hero, but also a fallen woman. No one seemed to know how to react.

Resounding footsteps. The crowd shifted, Master Fenwick pushing through. Up close, her grandfather bore the look of a man bowed by an immense strain that had not broken him. His murderous gaze fixed on Harben even as he paused before Iniya.

Iniya gripped her cane in both hands. “Lay a hand on him, and you’ll live to regret it.”

“I regret everything to do with you, Iniya Rothsberd.” Fenwick’s eyes shifted to Larkin. She swore regret flashed in their depths.

An older woman, her eyes white and blind, appeared behind him, a servant flapping at her side. “I’m sorry, master. She would not be persuaded.”

The old woman took a step past Fenwick before he caught her arm and pulled her back.

She bowed her head. “Please, husband. Send them away.”

Larkin stiffened.

Harben leaned toward Larkin and said in a whisper, “Fawna, your other grandmother. She has as much backbone as soggy bread.”

Larkin searched for something of her mother in Fawna, something of herself. All she saw was clouds of defeat and hopelessness behind rheumy eyes.

Fenwick softened and took her under his arm. He whispered something to her and motioned for the servant to lead her away. The woman went willingly this time.

Fenwick watched her go before rounding on them. “Nesha, is it?”

Larkin inclined her head. “Master Druid.”

He looked pointedly at her foot. “Enjoy the dancing.” He turned on his heel and caught up to Fawna.

No matter what Nesha had done, Larkin would always loathe anyone who mocked her twisted foot. “Is everyone in my family so hateful?”

“If you want compassion,” Iniya said as she pushed past Larkin, “look among the peasants.”