A servant led them to a table near the front on the far right. Tureens were laden with dishes of early spring vegetables—fresh peas and asparagus, garlic potatoes, lettuce, spinach, and cabbage. Larkin sat with Tam on one side and Iniya on the other, Harben and Raeneth across from them.

Servants brought in fat, juicy pigs roasted with apples and onions; lambs roasted with fresh garlic and garnished with sprigs of mint. There were breads too—round loaves with a crunchy exterior and soft rolls with perfect golden tops.

One woman served Fenwick at the high table first before the rest of the servants shifted through the rest of the room. Larkin took one of the rolls in her hands. Curling wisps of steam rose when she broke it open. She could already taste it. Fresh churned butter and strawberry preserves. Just like Venna used to make. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Ancestors save us, girl,” Iniya whispered. “Are you weeping over bread?”

No. She wept over a sweet girl who’d been turned into a monster—a monster Larkin had slipped a sword inside.

Larkin sniffed and put the roll back. “How much longer do we have to stay here?”

“Long enough to belie suspicion,” Iniya said between her teeth.

Across from them, Raeneth bounced her baby nervously while Harben loaded her plate with far too many spring peas.

At the end of the room, a Black Druid stood before Fenwick’s table. “We have survived another winter with the beast clawing at our door and stealing away our weakest, our most vulnerable like the wolves thinning the flock. The forest takes her tithe, and we are left with the strongest, the best.”

Only the Black Druids knew the truth of the forest. The rest were kept beneath the shadows of the curse just like the rest of them. At least, that was how it used to be. But now even the baker had heard of the pipers. The rest of the Idelmarch must be questioning the druids now.

“How can Fenwick keep repeating that lie?” Larkin murmured to Iniya.

“If word gets out the Black Druids have been lying for centuries,” Iniya said, “the people will turn on them. He sticks by the lie or he goes down with them.”

Fenwick lifted his cup. “To those strong enough to resist the call of the beast.”

Up and down the tables, druids lifted their cups. “To the strongest,” a few said half-heartedly. Others grumbled.

Fenwick was losing the support of his druids. Perhaps Iniya would have an easier time seizing control than they’d thought.

Not wanting to appear nervous, Larkin forced herself to eat a few bites. The pork was delicious, but it turned her stomach the moment she swallowed. She forced a few bites of each dish, the meal sitting heavier and heavier in her stomach.

“The hero of Hamel,” someone shouted. Larkin looked up to see a man standing three tables over and lifting his glass to her. “Tell us what really happened in Hamel. Tell us the story of how you resisted the beast and escaped its dark enchantment.”

She swallowed, her stomach revolting.

“Is it true that the beast is not a beast at all, but men?” a young druid asked. “That men have been taking our sisters?”

Larkin glanced around the room, druids sliding knowing expressions to each other. At some point, they had figured out the truth. They knew the Black Druid’s secret: the beast wasn’t a beast at all.

Fenwick stood, his chair screeching. He leaned over the table and looked over the druids with a thunderous expression. “The Forbidden Forest has always been good at keeping her secrets—secrets an individual could only learn after the Black Rites. Because the forest has suddenly decided to spill some of her secrets changes nothing.”

“We deserve the truth!” a druid shouted.

Fenwick eyed the man. “Then you should have followed your fellows into the forest.”

The men grumbled.

“Not one of the candidates has returned yet—not one!” one man shouted in outrage.

Fenwick slapped the table. “It has always been this way. Must always be this way. You don’t believe me, ask my fellow Black Druids. Now be still or be expelled.”

Most of the shouting died to grumbling. Three men continued. Black Druids bound all three in irons and escorted them out. Fenwick sat with a huff, his face red with fury.

Servants brought around thick slices of apple pie—probably made with the last of the winter apples—a thick dollop of clotted cream sliding across the top. They didn’t notice Iniya replacing her slice with one that had been hidden in Raeneth’s basket.

Iniya gave a shriek of outrage and pulled out a mouse from inside her pie. Soaked in juices, a chunk of apple falling off its leg, it looked as though it had been baked inside.

Men and women gasped in horror and pushed their pie away.

Iniya’s face went pale, her lip trembling with outrage. She shook the mouse in Fenwick’s direction. “I’d think the druids were trying to kill me a second time, were they not eating the same slop themselves.”

Fenwick rolled his eyes. “None of us tried to kill you the first time, Mad Queen.”

Iniya threw the mouse onto the table and gagged, a lacy handkerchief over her mouth. She tried to stand and plopped down on her chair. She glared up at Larkin. “Don’t stand there staring, girl. Can’t you see I’m in need of assistance?” She gagged again for good measure.

Larkin gripped her bony elbow and helped her to her feet. They hadn’t made it two steps before a servant intercepted them, his hands wringing. “Lady Iniya, I must ask that you take your seat. The feast—”

“That mouse—” She gagged and vomited on his shoes. He jumped back, his face twisting with disgust. Chairs scooted away. Some pushed to their feet to get away from them.

Larkin felt a presence behind her.

Tam scooped the old woman up. “Find us somewhere to go, man!”

The servant glanced at Fenwick. Face twisted with disgust, the Master Druid waved him on. Behind them came a high-pitched squawk. Kyden’s face reddened, his arms and legs flailing as he screamed. The front of Raeneth’s white dress went damp and transparent with milk.

She launched to her feet and hurried after them while Harben calmly took another bite of pie. The servant led them down a wide corridor to the nearest door, into what looked like a sitting room.

“I need somewhere to lie down, you incompetent nitwit. Do you suppose your master’s wooden chairs would suffice?” She gagged again.

The servant jumped back in alarm.

Iniya waved her handkerchief toward a door four rooms down. “That one has a lavatory and a bed, if I remember correctly.”

Without waiting for the man’s permission, Tam strode toward it and shouldered open the door. It was a bedroom, with a cheery fire spaced neatly between two large windows. The walls were lined with thick paneling.

Tam set Iniya gently on the rich, velvet coverlet on the bed.

Her back to the servant at the door, Raeneth pulled out a blanket soiled with baby poop, laid it over Kyden, and turned toward the servant. “Oh! I didn’t bring a spare.”

He blanched as he backed out the door, his hand fumbling for the knob. “I’ll fetch you a few buckets of water. I’ll just leave them outside.” He shut the door firmly behind him.

They all held their breath, waiting for something to go wrong. Then everyone moved at once. Iniya jumped from the bed. Raeneth took pillows from the chairs and stuffed them under the blankets in the basic shape of Iniya’s thin form. Larkin drew the heavy curtains, plunging the room into shadow.

Raeneth unloaded the basket of blankets Kyden had been lying on and handed Larkin a bag of torches as well as a smock. Raeneth plunged a torch into the fireplace and watched as it caught fire.

“What’s this for?” Larkin held out the smock.

“Put it on.” Iniya paused at the corner of the room and pressed a catch on the wood paneling. The bottom panel swung outward, revealing a narrow opening barely wide enough for a trim person. A damp breeze that smelled of mineral and abandonment wafted up from below.

Iniya looked Tam up and down. “The library is on the top floor, northwest tower. It should be unmanned, but if anyone asks, tell them Garrot sent you to fetch him a book. If they don’t believe you, die without giving us up.”

What if they went through all of this and never found Eiryss’s journal or her ahlea amulet? Or worse still, what if they found them and they revealed nothing? Larkin couldn’t bear to be wrong—not after everything she’d risked.

“Don’t get caught,” Larkin said breathlessly as she adjusted the smock, pulled out the stuffing around her belly, and hauled the bag of torches over her shoulder. “And don’t die.”

Tam saluted and left.

Iniya handed Larkin her cane. “You go first. Catch me if I fall.”

More likely they’d both tumble to their deaths. “Are you sure you can manage it?”

Iniya gave a hard shake of her head. “You’ll never find it without me.” She dropped the torch, the fire nearly going out before it landed about a story down.

Larkin shot a dubious look at the ladder—how many decades had this sat in the damp dark? At least it appeared sturdily made. Steeling herself, she swung out and started down.

“Stay in the lavatory,” Iniya said to Raeneth. “Make plenty of unsavory noises if someone comes in.”

Iniya swung out over Larkin and shut the panel door, plunging them into shadow. Down, down, down Larkin went. She kept her gaze on the smoldering torch until she stepped into the center of a room about the size of her hut in Hamel. Dust-caked shelves filled with rotted food and casks of wine dominated one side. A sunken, moldering bed the other. In the ceiling were a dozen other openings, though the one they’d come down was the only one with a ladder. The air was heavy, sitting deep in Larkin’s lungs. Aside from the greasy scent of the torch, the room smelled of rotting wood and mold.

“What is this place?” Larkin asked.

“Father made me practice reaching his bolt hole a dozen times a week,” she panted. “Many rooms in the palace have secret doors that lead here.”

“And Fenwick doesn’t know?”

Iniya took her cane from Larkin. “That’s what comes of stealing a palace that isn’t yours—you don’t know where the secret passages are.”

So why hadn’t Iniya and her family hid themselves here? Larkin wanted to ask, but the worlds felt sticky and impossible in her mouth.

Iniya gestured to one of the side walls made of gray brick. “Put your shoulder into it.”

It looked like a solid wall to Larkin. But then, so had the paneling. Bracing her feet, she pushed. Nothing happened.

“Push harder, girl!”

Bracing her feet, Larkin pushed with all her strength. The wall gave with an unholy shriek. She admired the central pivot and the masonry on the sides that cleverly disguised the opening. She took the torch and eased into a cavern filled with rows upon rows of sarcophagi, each with the likeness of the inhabitant at the peak of youth carved across the top. Three centuries of Eiryss’s offspring. Larkin’s ancestors.

Larkin brushed cobwebs out of the way. A thick layer of dust coated the tombs, easily as thick as her finger. Behind her was a solid wooden door, the hinges rusted.

No one had been down here in a very, very long time.

“No one to care for our ancestors.” Iniya’s voice trembled. She wiped the dirt off the face of a man and woman. “When my time comes, I should have a place beside my parents, my siblings.” Three child-sized sarcophagi and three adult-sized ones lay beside their parents. Seven children. Only one had survived.

Iniya sniffed. “Fenwick won’t let me. He won’t risk elevating my family by burying me here.” The old woman shifted among the tombs, dusty cobwebs coating her smock—so that’s why they’d brought them. “At each equinox, our people would bring candles, until the whole cavern shone like stars.”

Iniya paused before the tomb farthest back. Larkin wiped through decades of dust, exposing white marble. Carved into the lid was the likeness of the woman Larkin had seen in her vision, right down to her flowing hair and weak chin.

“This is her,” she breathed.

“Eiryss,” Iniya agreed. “The first queen of the United Cities of the Idelmarch.”

Larkin scraped away the dust at the woman’s neck. Sure enough, she wore an amulet carved in the shape the ahlea flower. At some point, Pennice had found her way to this chamber, had seen these tombs.

Larkin flared her sword, which had cut through vines without so much as shifting them. Two-handed, she lifted it over her head.

“What are you doing?” Iniya cried.

Larkin swung down at the top of the tomb, just above the carving’s head. Her eyes slipped shut at the last moment. The sword sliced through the marble as though it were a thick loaf of bread. The top of the tomb was cut nearly all the way through.

Iniya grabbed her arm—she was stronger than she looked. “This place is sacred!”

Larkin gripped the front of the woman’s smock in her filthy hands. “You want the pipers’ support? This is the price. I didn’t come here to pay respects to the dead. I came to take something.”

Betrayal shone in the older woman’s eyes. “Don’t ever love anyone, Larkin. Don’t ever trust them. They will only ever hurt you.”

As Larkin had just hurt her. Larkin released her as if the old woman’s touch had burned her. “Eiryss left it for me to find. I don’t dishonor her by taking it.”

“Left what?” Iniya asked.

Instead of answering, Larkin swung again. The top teetered. She shoved it, shattered stone grinding as it fell with a crash and an explosion of dust.

Larkin knelt and peered inside. It was so dark. She carefully edged in her gleaming sword. No rotted cloth. No grinning skeleton. And certainly no ahlea amulet.

“Empty,” Larkin gasped. It couldn’t be. She jerked the torch out of Iniya’s grasp and thrust it into the echoing space. “How can it be empty?”

The only answer was Iniya’s click, click, clicking steps.

Larkin hurried to catch up to her. “There has to be some mistake. That can’t be Eiryss’s tomb.” But Larkin had seen Eiryss’s carved face with her own eyes. “If Eiryss isn’t here, where is she?”

Iniya slipped into the chamber. “Close the door.”

Larkin froze in place. “No. No, I cannot fail. I cannot return empty-handed—not after everything.”

“Whatever it is you were after, you don’t need it.” Iniya finally deigned to look at her. “All my life, I have lived for only one purpose: to destroy the druids. And I will do it, I swear upon my life and the lives of all my posterity.”

Larkin huffed. “You don’t have the right to swear anything on my life, old woman.”

“Larkin, Iniya, hurry,” Raeneth hissed from above.

Iniya struggled up the rungs. The sound of knocking echoed down the tunnel. “I must insist you let us in,” came a muffled voice.

“Just a moment, sir,” Raeneth said calmly. “The lady is not quite dressed.”

“You’ve been saying that for five minutes,” someone grumbled. “I’ve brought the healer. Now let us in.”

Five rungs down from the top, Larkin shoved her shoulder into Iniya’s rump and pushed. Raeneth reached down and hooked her arms under Iniya’s. Between the two of them, they managed to heave her out of the passageway. Larkin slithered out and pushed the panel door shut with her foot.

Raeneth hauled off Iniya’s smock and tossed it into the fire. Larkin couldn’t believe they were wasting valuable cloth, but better to waste it than get caught and have to explain what they were doing with it. She tossed hers in on top of Iniya’s, washed her face and hands in a bucket, and ran her damp hands over her dusty hair.

“How is it?” Larkin asked Raeneth.

She looked up from where she ran a damp cloth over Iniya’s hair. “You missed some cobwebs in the back.”

“Open the door,” someone demanded from outside.

“Leave me in peace,” Iniya panted loudly. Her face was pale and shiny with sweat.

Raeneth gathered the cobwebs from Larkin’s hair. Together, they dumped the water down the lavatory hole. They hurried back to the room, and Raeneth gasped, “Larkin, your belly!”

Larkin swore and shoved the pillow up the front of her dress. No sooner was it in place than the key turned in the lock and Fenwick burst in with two druids and a man in healer robes.

The healer went to Iniya’s side and knelt before her as she moaned. Raeneth immediately picked up her baby and backed into a corner.

Larkin squared off before Fenwick, her magic an itch she dared not scratch. “Since we are clearly not welcome to rest in the palace, I insist you help us take Iniya home.”

“She does indeed appear unwell,” the healer said.

“Pick her up,” Fenwick said. “And see she’s taken home.” One of the druids lifted her.

“Take your filthy hands off me,” Iniya panted.

Harben stepped into the room. “I’ll take her.”

Fenwick’s narrowed gaze shifted to Larkin. “Where’s your other friend?

So they hadn’t found Tam. “He went to fetch our carriage.”

Fenwick watched her, clearly not believing a word she said. “Have you ever seen the druids dispense justice?”

Was he inviting her to the executions or threatening her? Probably both.

Iniya gripped Larkin’s arm, her nails digging in. “I need my granddaughter with me.”

Fenwick followed them into the corridor and watched as they left, a heavy foreboding in his dark gaze.