Veran

“She grows more ruthless by the week!”

Minister Kobok slams down a stack of parchment. “On this particular wagon, not only were the driver and guards slain, but the passenger was, as well. All items of value were stripped from the coach, including one of the oxen. Everything else they set on fire, burned to a crisp.”

I glance at Rou beside me, who’s listening with a concentrated frown. When we heard about this emergency meeting following the reports of the Sunshield Bandit’s latest attack in the Ferinno, we were cautiously optimistic—making the desert safer is, after all, one of our major goals. But I expect Rou, like me, is irked by the fact that it was an attack on a slaver, not a passenger coach, that’s caused this uproar.

“Bandits have been a thorn in our side as long as we have peacefully quarried the desert border,” the minister continues. “And for years, the council has ignored my regular pleas to authorize organized force against them. The reason given has always been that the bandits—the Sunshield Bandit in particular—seem only to kill either themselves or wandering criminals. But I hope it is now clear that this is no longer the case. These are vagabonds, lawless and ready to murder anyone for material gain. How soon before they waylay a full stagecoach? How soon before they start raids on the quarry outposts?” He slaps his palm over his parchment. “I put forth to you now—if you are still in favor of inaction, you are more concerned about public image than the safety of our citizens and the economic future of our country.”

Around the room, folk shift in their chairs, murmuring. I look to Prince Iano, sitting next to his mother and staring at the table. This is the first I’ve seen him since eavesdropping from the trees a few days before. I can’t tell if he’s taken the grisly threats to act natural to heart—his stoic gaze could just as easily be attributed to the news of this latest wagon attack.

Rou is silent, his knuckles over his lips. He’s got circles under his eyes—product of checking in on Eloise through the night. She’s still not feeling well, her rattly cough lingering in her chest. When I sought her out yesterday afternoon to parce out everything I’ve learned, Rou practically fenced me away with the fire poker, arguing that she was finally getting some sleep in between coughing fits and I could turn myself right around.

Now he lifts his knuckles from his lips to mutter to me. “Catch me up—the Sunshield Bandit attacked a Moquoian wagon, and he’s wanting to go after her?”

“Banditry in general, it sounds like,” I murmur back.

He frowns, but before he can say anything, the queen clears her throat. “What do you suggest, Minister?”

Kobok flips the top page of his stack with vehemence. “Set a bounty in all the border towns. Station a small garrison in Pasul.”

“No,” Iano says suddenly, and all the attention in the room rivets on him. He sits up, a new ferocity on his face. “No bounty or garrison is going to do the work for us. We need soldiers out in the desert itself. It’s time to start organizing searches. Hunts. It’s time to start flushing them out of their hideaways.”

Several eyebrows raise, including the queen’s and Kobok’s.

“Your support is encouraging, my prince,” the minister says. “Perhaps if we begin small, with an armed presence in Vittenta and Pasul, we can start to gather intelligence on the whereabouts—”

“No, I want a sweep,” Iano says. “And I want it now. Before Mokonnsi ends. This lawlessness has gone on far too long.”

Kobok takes a little breath. “I doubt I need to point out that the Ferinno is a huge place, my prince. The type of active presence you’re suggesting would take weeks just to organize—posses would have to be formed, with a budget, and a strategy. We cannot simply scatter soldiers across the desert . . .”

“Then get on it,” Iano says. He turns to a startled woman with a badge pinned to her lapel. “Map a course for ten groups of fifteen soldiers each, with suggestions for provisions and base camps—”

“Wait just a minute,” Rou says suddenly.

The folk around the table all turn to us. Rou’s forehead has gone from a single crease to a collection of deep furrows.

“The Ferinno is Alcoran land,” he says in punctuated Moquoian.

An unreadable silence descends over the room—I can’t tell if it’s hostile or merely attentive. Rou leans forward over the polished table.

“Moquoian soldiers do not have the authority to climb the Ferinno—”

“Enter,” I amend quickly. “Enter the Ferinno.”

“Enter, they don’t—damnation.” He lapses into Eastern and turns to me, gesturing between us and the rest of the table. “Tell them, Veran. They can’t send soldiers into the Ferinno—there are Alcoran citizens that live out along the stage road, and most of the bandits are likely Alcoran anyway. Tell them this kind of action requires authorization by Prime Councilor Itzpin and the Senate at the very least, if not—”

“If that’s the case, Ambassador,” Iano says in crisp Eastern—balls, we’ve both forgotten again he’s perfectly fluent—“why has the Alcoran Senate not put any effort into stemming banditry in the Ferinno up to this point? They’ve left bandits to their own devices, leaving Moquoia to suffer the consequences.”

“Alcoro has been focused on stanching the slave trade,” Rou counters, his usual affable diplomacy sharpened into a spearhead. “Which, I am loath to point out, generally flows in one direction. If there’s been a rise in bandit activity, it’s because Moquoia is bringing more ready targets right to their doorsteps.”

Iano’s face sours. “The point of this discussion is that the attacks are going beyond just the slavers’ wagons—”

“Speak so we might all understand,” Kobok booms, cutting through the volley of Eastern.

I chew the inside of my lip—I know what’s going on in Iano’s mind. He’s latching on to the opportunity of hunting bandits to send soldiers to look for whoever he’s being blackmailed with, though I can’t think why he wants to start in the Ferinno and not within his own borders. I’m not sure how to adequately navigate this—not with Rou practically steaming out his ears next to me. But I think I’m probably the only one with all the pieces.

I clear my throat and say in Moquoian, “The ambassador is concerned about the legality of sending Moquoian soldiers over Alcoran borders. There may be impacts to Alcoran citizens.”

Kobok waves a hand. “There has already been a greater impact to Moquoian citizens. The quarries themselves are worked by Moquoian labor.”

I start to translate for Rou, but he shakes his head—he’s understood the minister. “The quarries are on Alcoran soil, and they’re worked by slave labor,” he spits in Eastern. He jabs me in the ribs. “Tell them we’re done dancing around this subject. Time’s up.”

Oh, by the Light. “The ambassador is concerned about the ownership of the quarries, and the, um, nature of employment of your workers—”

“The recruitment of contract workers is not the concern of this conversation,” Iano says. “A wagon and its occupants, bound for Moquoia, have been attacked and killed just outside our borders, and there’s nothing to suggest it won’t happen again.”

I try not to flick my gaze around the table full of Moquoian ministers. “Prince Iano, I understand the distress of your situation. But consider that this is an excellent reason to open the partnership with Alcoro and the rest of the East that we’ve spent so long discussing—”

“There is no partnership,” Iano says sharply, his gaze boring into mine. “There will be no partnership until the threat to this court stops.”

He’s not talking about the damn wagon. But nobody else knows that—certainly not Rou, who blinks in consternation at the Moquoian prince. I can tell from his expression that he doesn’t need this latest statement translated, either.

“Did he just—look here, young man, we did not spend weeks of travel and hundreds of silvers for you to treat Alcoran territory as your own!”

“Speak Moquoian, by the colors!” Kobok demands.

Iano’s next words are in the language of the room, and they fall like a gavel. “Then leave. Go back to the East, and take no goodwill from our court to yours.”

Rou stares at him momentarily, and then twists in his seat to me, his thumb jerked toward the prince. “Did he just—?”

“I think we should go,” I say quickly, shoving back my chair. I nod to Prince Iano. “Allow me to speak to the ambassador and Princess Eloise and see if we can come to an accord.”

Rou tries to shake off my tug on his arm. “I’m not done here—”

“I need to talk to you,” I whisper. “It’s important.”

He frowns at me but rises to his feet. He turns momentarily back to the prince and raps on the table. “We are not finished here.”

I offer a vague bow to the room and proceed to drag him out the door of the ministerial chamber.

We’re barely through the two guards outside the door when Rou flicks his arm out of my grip. “All right, what is this about?”

“Okay, stay with me,” I say, beckoning him to keep moving—I want to get up to Eloise’s room to get her input as well. “Iano doesn’t want to get out in the desert to hunt bandits. He wants soldiers out there to look for someone he’s lost—and I think it’s the previous ashoki.”

“So . . . nope, you’ve lost me.”

We reach the main staircase, which I take with speed—I’m wearing Moquoian shoes again today, and the hobnails echo off the steps. “You know how the ashoki before Kimela died before we got here? There’s a rumor in court that the Sunshield Bandit was the one to attack her stagecoach. But just yesterday I overheard Iano taking a message from one of the servants. It sounded like he’s being blackmailed with the safety of somebody.”

“Blackmailed into what?”

“I don’t know, but it might have something to do with his drastic switch in politics. At least, that’s the only thing that makes sense to me.” We reach the landing in the atrium and cut a line down the guest wing.

“Why hasn’t he told anybody?” Rou’s voice has a puff to it as he matches my stride.

“I don’t think he knows where the threats are coming from, or how to stop them, short of just doing what they’re demanding.”

“Why is this the first I’m hearing of it, five weeks into this thrice-cursed attempt at diplomacy?”

“Because I’ve only just found out, and, well . . . you’ve been so busy with Eloise . . .”

Rou sighs. “You’re right—I’ve been neglecting one duty for another. Okay, I’m listening now. And what you’re saying is that Iano wants to use banditry as an excuse to send troops onto Alcoran soil?”

“That’s what it sounds like.”

“This despite the fact that part of our negotiations was supposed to revolve around ownership of the quarries? That’s going to look an awful lot like a border expansion back in Callais, and I can’t say I’d blame them for the assumption.” He shakes his head as we approach Eloise’s door. “And why is he homing in on the Ferinno in the first place? Wouldn’t a Moquoian captive be held somewhere in Moquoia? Has he checked the forests? The islands? Why’s he got his eye on the desert?”

I’m about to answer that I don’t know that, either, readying myself to bring this into Eloise’s room and hash it out with her, when the answer suddenly hits me, plain as day.

“Oh,” I say. “It’s probably . . .”

“What?”

“It’s probably because he thinks we’re doing the blackmailing.”

Rou’s hand pauses on the doorknob, and he stares at me. His lips move wordlessly for a moment.

“Blazes, why?” he asks.

“Well . . . probably first because he’s desperate and panicking. And probably because it all happened around our arrival, and because he knows we’re after the slave trade, and because the first he heard of the attack, it was all tied up with the Sunshield Bandit—though I’m not entirely sure she had anything to do with it.”

He waves a hand as if swatting a fly. “This is all walnuts, and what’s more, it’s insulting. I’ve dealt with some wild card politicians in my time, but this is just plain dangerous. If he’s not careful, he’ll be starting his reign with a full-fledged declaration of enmity instead of an alliance.”

I’m worried that’s exactly what he’s already done. “What if I can talk to him?” I ask. “If I approach him frankly, tell him what I know—”

“Based on what you just told me, if he hasn’t told anybody else, it’ll only confirm that we’re somehow behind it. Fire and smoke, what a nightmare.” He jerks the doorknob and storms into Eloise’s parlor. I follow, my thoughts a thundercloud.

“Eloise?” Rou calls. “How’re you feeling, lolly?”

I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts, it takes me a moment to realize Eloise hasn’t answered with her usual exasperated affirmation. I snap back to reality when Rou’s voice rings out in a bark.

“Ellie, baby! What’s wrong?”

I spring for the bedroom door. Rou is swooping down to Eloise’s bedside, where she’s slumped over with one hand on the side table, as if she’d been reaching for the water jug just out of reach. Her breath sounds like a stone caught in a milling wheel, thick and rocky. Her skin has a grayish pallor to it, filmed by sweat, and her bonnet’s askew. Several dark curls cling to her damp forehead.

“Oh, blessed Light, she’s on fire.” Rou flings an arm toward the door. “Get the physician—get somebody!”

Without a pause I scramble back for the parlor, my heart in my throat. Halfway across, I shuck off my shoes and run barefoot into the hall. I fly down the corridor and take the staircase three steps at a time, angling for the physician’s ward. She’s at her counter rolling pills when I burst into her office.

“Come quick, please—it’s Princess Eloise.”

 

Ten minutes later, I’m hovering behind Rou, who’s hovering behind the physician. She has an ear cone to Eloise’s chest, her lips in a thin line.

“Rainshed,” she says, leaning back.

“What’d she say?” Rou looks over his shoulder at me, almost like he’s choosing not to understand.

“It’s rainshed fever,” I confirm, my stomach left somewhere down on the third floor.

Rou inhales, his face gray. He goes to Eloise’s bedside and closes his fingers around hers.

“What’s it usually like?” he asks, his voice gravelly.

I translate for the physician.

“High temperature, lethargy, low appetite, a thick cough,” she replies. “In about half the cases, it runs its course in ten to twelve days, usually with persisting weakness afterward.”

“And—the other half?” Rou prompts when I’ve finished the translation.

The physician pinches her lips. A sick sense of dread fills my stomach. Please don’t make me tell him that.

“There’s a higher survival rate with the first case,” the physician says tactfully. “A relapse would be more dangerous. Has she taken feather-plant before?”

“Has she ever taken yarrow?” I ask Rou. “It grows along the western edge of the Stellarange.” Mama sometimes uses it in her scout kits to stanch blood flow.

He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. She has some allergies. Her physician at home often uses poultices.”

“I’m going to start her on feather-plant, and a small measure of skunk cabbage to help control her cough,” the physician says, rising from her chair. “I’ll send someone to bring more firewood in case she gets the chills.”

Whatever Rou’s about to say next is cut short as Eloise breaks into another bout of coughing. He turns back to her bedside, and the physician slips out the door to the hall.

Eloise’s cough gets deeper and sharper, her shoulders shaking. Rou strokes her forehead, tucking a few curls back under her bonnet.

“Papa?” she whispers hoarsely.

“Hi, lolly,” he replies with hollow cheerfulness.

“What did—” She coughs again. “What did they say at the meeting?”

“Nothing important. Just odds and ends.” He brushes her sweaty forehead. “You rest, okay? We’re getting something to help with your cough.”

“I wanted to make notes.”

“I’ll jot some things down for you later. You rest now.”

“No, I want—” She clears her groggy throat. “I want to stay caught up—the exchequer is supposed to be at dinner tomorrow—”

“Sweetheart—you’re not going to dinner tomorrow. None of us are. We’re leaving.”

My insides freeze. “What?”

Her fluttering eyelids snap open. “What?”

“We’re going home,” Rou says, his face set. “We’re chartering a coach and team to take us back across the Ferinno. This trip has been a failed effort—it’s time to cut our losses.”

“Wait, no—we can’t. Papa . . .”

“We’re just starting to make progress,” I say.

“No, we’re moving backward.” He gestures to the door to the hall. “For weeks we’ve been handled and danced around and put off, only to find out we’re potentially being blamed for political blackmail nobody knows about.”

Eloise’s startled gaze jumps from him to me. “We’re being blamed for blackmail?”

“I don’t know,” I say quickly. “I only said it’s a possibility—”

Rou shakes his head with force. “Even if it’s not, you’ve caught the fever everyone’s been worried about, Eloise, and I refuse to take risks where your health is concerned.”

“How could I have caught it?” she whispers, her eyelids heavy. “I’ve done everything they told us to do.”

“It doesn’t matter so much how,” he says. “The point is, you’ve got it, and we know almost nothing about it, and the physician says it could be worse if you were to relapse. I know it’s a disappointment—for all of us—but nothing worked out the way we expected.”

“Let me talk to Iano,” I say, trying to keep from wringing my hands. “Let me just sit down with him—”

“And what, Veran? You had the chance to talk a few nights ago at the ball, but I hear rumors it didn’t exactly go well.” I drop my gaze. “I’m not saying that to make you feel bad—I need you to understand how the deck is stacked against us. Diplomacy was apparently not the intent of our visit for Prince Iano. I’ll be damned if I understand why, but he’s not interested in talking policy. And part of good diplomacy is knowing when a graceful retreat is best.”

“But . . . but . . .” I get a vision of me arriving back home, rejoining my family dragging such a monumental failure behind me. They’ll expect me to tell them everything, every twist and turn and nonevent. I’ll have to tell them—Vynce in his new Woodwalker boots, Ida bristling with stripes on her uniform, Susi with a blue-zillion new silver bells on her fringe . . . and Viya, sitting silently, probably keeping a mental tally of all the things she could have done better in her sleep. Papa and Mama, he with a sympathetic smile, she with a few punctuated remarks meant to lighten the weight of my defeat, but both sharing that silent conviction—he shouldn’t have gone. He was never up to it.

“We can’t,” I croak to Rou. “This could be the only chance—”

“It’s not our only chance, V. Diplomacy is a long game.”

“I want to keep trying,” Eloise says, her words shallow as she tries to hold off her cough. “I’ll be okay in a few days.”

“No, you probably won’t, Ellie. You hold on to even a chest cold longer than most folk, and this is much worse.”

“But we can do it,” I insist. “I know we can make it work—”

“Veran—”

“Moquoia is the key to everything we’ve worked for.” I press despite the palpable sparks in the air. “Too much is at stake—we just need more time—”

I’ve gone too far. Something in Rou’s posture snaps, throwing every line rigid. He leans toward me. “I am not hanging around, working a cold forge, so Eloise can die twelve hundred miles from her mother in the country that already took her sister away from us.”

My mouth slams shut, something it should have done about half a minute ago. Eloise’s lips scrunch up, her gaze flicking down to the coverlet. Rou’s face has gone from weary to uncharacteristically fierce. He takes a sharp breath, looking between the two of us.

“Take a second to get your head around things—both of you. This isn’t debate team or philosophy class. I know you both feel like eighteen years old is the height of maturity, but bellringer—it’s not. And you both have more cause to be concerned about your health than most folk. Eloise—you’re the single direct heir to Lumen Lake.” His voice gets a little rockier. “Since we lost your sister, and since the miscarriages, you’re all we have. Veran, you’re not any less important. And if this is all just some kind of ego boost for you, then maybe you need the failure to reorient yourselves.”

I don’t know how his words are affecting Eloise, but they hit me like hammer blows, shuddering my chest with each one. Rou’s never harsh. He never snaps. Where Queen Mona is brisk, Mama rough, and Papa calm, Rou’s always the one to lighten the mood, to provoke a laugh, to ease the tension among quarreling parties. The fact that I’ve been callous enough to spark such a reaction from him makes me feel worse than I have so far in this whole five-week debacle.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I—I wasn’t thinking.”

Rou lets out another breath, and he rubs his face. “I know it’s not what we hoped for. I’m disappointed, too. It’s going to be hard to explain at home, and it complicates our next attempts with Moquoia. But it’s for the best. You can see that, can’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” I say instantly.

“Ellie?”

“Yes, Papa.” Her gaze is still lowered, but it’s not with the same cut-edged mortification I feel. Rather, she seems to be thinking.

“Good.” He rises heavily from Eloise’s bed. “I’m going to look into chartering a coach, or at least traveling with a caravan. And I’ll have to start making the case for our exit. Veran, you go ahead and start packing.”

“Yes, sir.”

Eloise plucks a handkerchief off the bedside table and holds it to her mouth in time to cover a few short coughs. Rou tucks a few damp curls back under her lavender bonnet. He stoops and kisses her forehead.

“Get some rest. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” With one more sigh, he heads out into the parlor. Only when the hall door closes behind him do I let out my breath.

“I’m sorry, Eloise. That was so stupid of me.” I wave to the bedside table. “Do you need anything? A drink? I can heat up the kettle . . .”

She drops the handkerchief from her lips. “Okay, so we’re potentially being blamed for blackmail?”

My hand halts halfway to the kettle. “Uh, what?”

“Hurry—I need answers if we’re going to get anything done.” Her voice is whispery and raw. “Who’s blackmailing whom?”

“Your pa said you should rest.”

“Papa . . .” she begins, and then takes a short breath, pressing her palm to her chest. A cough escapes her. “I won’t go against Papa. If he thinks we should leave, then we’re leaving. But by my guess the earliest we could leave is tomorrow morning, which means we don’t have a lot of time—but we have some.”

“Time for what? What can you possibly do in less than twelve hours when you can barely get out of bed?”

“Not much—that’s why you’re going to have to do most of the heavy lifting. It may be a long night for you. Are you up for it?”

“I don’t know,” I say warily, thinking back to my string of failures, and my hopes that she wouldn’t ask me to take on anything else without her. “What am I agreeing to?”

“First, to answer my questions.” She settles her head against her pillow, her eyes underlined with shadows, but her expression set. “Tell me about the blackmail.”

Quickly—a little hesitantly, given Rou’s admonition a moment ago—I fill her in on what I learned during Kualni An-Orra the day before. The threats by way of Fala, the likely connection to the ashoki, Iano’s anger during the meeting earlier.

“He wants to send soldiers into the Ferinno,” I say. “Supposedly to root out bandits, but I’m sure it’s to find the ashoki. But that kind of military presence crossing a border . . .”

“Would be clear grounds for a defensive show from Alcoro,” Eloise murmurs. “Which would ripple out to the rest of the East and set a clear pretext for war—which would be the greatest strain on the Eastern Alliance since it was founded.” She coughs into her handkerchief again and rubs her chest. “All right. Priority one, then, has to be clearing our name—we can’t leave with him thinking we’re behind everything. It’s only going to snowball into something we can’t control.”

“I tried that at Bakkonso, but he barely gave me a chance to get started.”

She frowns, but before she can respond, there’s an almighty thump at the window. We both jump.

“What was that?” she asks.

My stomach curls. “A bird.” I get up and go to the window, craning my head to look down, where a little body lies on the ledge, its head bent like the ones I saw along the palace foundation. I start to turn back to Eloise, but then I pause—there’s a small drift of moving air. Did the bird break the glass? There are no cracks above it. Curious, I twitch the curtain aside. The main window is made of one giant sheet, but where the drapes hide the edges, they transition to less opulent panes, each just a few inches wide.

In the very corner of the window, where the casing meets solid wall, one small pane has been broken out, hidden by the thick folds of the drapes. I frown—there are no glass fragments inside, but the curtain is soaking wet—it’s been broken for some time. I lean right up against the casing and look down at the outside sill, wondering if it was somehow cracked from the inside.

There’s no glass on the sill, but there is something else—a small bowl full of rainwater. Tucked into the corner of the window, it’s protected from the weather beyond. Puzzled, I bend closer.

And see the hundreds of mosquito larvae writhing in the water.

I straighten so quickly the curtain drags on its rod. My fingers shoot impulsively through the missing pane—not broken, I realize, but purposefully removed—and push the bowl off the sill. It sails into open air, spilling its infested water as it drops away.

“What are you doing?” Eloise asks.

I stand immobile, clutching the curtain. My breath is shallow and quick.

“Eloise,” I finally say. “Did you know a windowpane over here is missing?”

“No. Is it broken?”

“It . . . it looks like it was taken out. There’s no jagged glass.”

I hear the frown in her voice. “That doesn’t make sense.”

I swallow. “There was . . . a little bowl of water just outside it. With mosquitoes in it.”

There’s silence behind me. It stretches out until it fills the room, thick with impossibility. At long last, I turn around to face her. Her face is tense, her forehead creased.

She adjusts her position on her pillows. She refolds her hands. The silence sticks a few seconds longer.

“Well,” she says.

“Do you . . . do you think someone put it there?” I ask.

“I can’t think of many other options,” she replies evenly.

We fall silent again.

“Though it seems like an unreliable way to make me sick,” she says. “Just hoping an infected mosquito might find its way in. Why not just slip me poison?”

I gesture to the window. “Nobody could say this wasn’t an accident.”

She purses her lips, but she doesn’t say anything. Stiffly, she smooths the quilt over her lap.

“Don’t tell Papa,” she says. “He’s already made up his mind about leaving, and if he starts accusing the Moquoian court of deliberately infecting me with rainshed fever, he’ll look like a fool at best and make himself a target at worst. I’ll tell him when we’ve gotten out of the country. Until then, keep your door locked, all right?”

“What about Iano?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “I suppose I’ll have to write him a letter and hope it will be enough to convince him not to invade the Ferinno. I’d thought about sending you to make a plea at his door, but if we have an enemy in the palace, I don’t think that’s a good idea anymore.”

I turn back to the window, hoping to hide my disappointment. My gaze falls again on the dead bird on the sill. Iano being blackmailed, but not by us; Eloise being infected, but we don’t know by whom—and all the while this ashoki, her conspicuous death hovering at the edge of the court, altering the tide of diplomacy, breaking alliances. If only Iano could make his search without threatening war on the East and alerting the wrong people in court. If only we had someone we knew for certain we could trust, someone we knew didn’t have a hand in this mess of politics.

My gaze roves over the bird, finally recognizing its patterned feathers, speckled black and white above a shock of yellow. It’s a western bird, not a Silvern one, but I remember it from the canyon rim around the university, piping its sweet fluty song. A meadowlark.

A lark.

My mind sputters over several things at once.

A captive in the Ferinno. A puzzling account of the attack. A confirmed attack on Colm’s stage, a day’s ride in the other direction, happening right around the same time.

The need for someone to trust.

I did find out one significant thing—her name.

It’s Lark.

I lean back from the window, my heart pounding.

“I need to talk to Iano,” I say quickly, staring out at the rain.

“Fetch me some parchment—if you tell me what you want to say, I’ll include it in the letter.”

“No,” I say. “You don’t have to write a letter. I’ll talk to him face-to-face.”

“Veran, if someone purposefully broke my window to let in mosquitoes, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to make too much noise on the eve of our departure.”

“I can do it without the court finding out.” I search for a fast lie. “There’s . . . a cocktail party on one of the terraces tonight. I can talk to him there.”

“Privately?”

“Yes.”

I can feel her gaze boring into the back of my head. “It doesn’t involve anything . . . I don’t know, excessively risky, does it?”

“Of course not—you know my pa’s rules.”

“I also know now that you squirreled through a mess of trees yesterday to spy on a foreign monarch. Turn around and tell me to my face that you’re not going to take stupid risks.”

I turn around, trying to force all emotion out of my expression. Solemnly, I raise a hand. “I swear with a scout’s honor I’m not going to take stupid risks.”

She squints at me, frowning. “All right, then.” She doesn’t sound at all like she believes me, so I turn for the door as nonchalantly as I can.

“I’m going to go pack,” I say. “For the trip home.”

She doesn’t reply. I feel her gaze follow me until I’m out of the room. Once in the hall, I take a deep, shaky breath.

I didn’t lie to her. I’m not going to take stupid risks.

I’m going to take necessary ones.

Also, I’m not a scout.