Amara had always wanted to climb up herself, but she hadn’t been old enough. Maybe she’d get the chance now.
She was back.
Back, her mind sang. Back.
She wanted to keep her attention on the gleam of Lorres’s braid or on his freckles, but the people crossing the courtyard kept drawing her eye: employees carrying papers and escorting accused criminals, servants working on the yard and lighting the evening’s lamps. Their tattoos and the way they signed to one another from afar were unmistakable, but she didn’t see many of them. Servants avoided crossing the courtyard. They had their own passages. Amara knew where to look, though; there, one entrance behind the thicket and trees; there, between that stable and shed … She saw only flashes, people out one door and in another, carrying bags and jugs that contained food and drinks, cleaning supplies, clothes, repair tools, garbage.
Some servants didn’t even reach her hips. Had there always been so many children? There couldn’t have been. She remembered being lonely.
“They’ve done a lot of”—Lorres waffled over the right sign—“recruiting since you left.” He must’ve caught her looking. “And some redecorating. Welcome to Drudo palace.”
They passed one entrance and were about to enter another door, one framed by an elaborate arch. Amara halted. She remembered passing underneath that arch. A quiver would run over her skin every time. “Is there still a protective ward here?”
“You remembered. Ruudde had it removed, though.”
“You’re certain?” She didn’t want to explain out here but couldn’t take the risk. “I’m enchanted.”
He looked surprised, but it didn’t show in his signs. “I’m certain. We can take the servants’ way in if you prefer, though.”
Amara nodded. She remembered that, too; the door was just around the corner, almost indistinguishable from the walls.
She was back. The words repeated themselves over and over in her mind as they walked through the servant passage. Back in Bedam. Back in the palace. Back with Ruudde.
At least she might find answers now. With Cilla roaming Bedam unguarded, though, Amara had a hard time seeing the positives. And what about Amara herself? What would Ruudde do to her?
“Listen,” Lorres signed, “I’m putting you in a cell for now. I’ll be back to cut your hair. Then I’ll alert Ruudde. Normally we wouldn’t go so high up, but you’ve been gone for so long, I suspect he’d want to know.” One corner of his lips tilted up. “Not many runaways manage to stay hidden for so long. Someday I’ll ask you all about where you’ve been. And about that enchantment.”
Someday. Lorres thought Amara was here to stay. That he could cut her hair and expose her tattoo, dress her in palace-issued clothes, and put her with the rest of the servants. She’d cook and clean and build new walls.
Maybe he was right.
“I will ask one thing: did Nicosce take you? You two disappeared at the same time.”
“Don’t make that sign,” Amara said. “She is no longer that. She is the servant who came before … before …” She didn’t know what to call either of them now.
“She’s dead?”
Amara thought back to when they’d both worked at the palace. Those memories were blurry, pushed away by more recent memories of the servant teaching Amara about etiquette and cleaning and games, and of her feeding the horses Jorn once traded for. Horses. She’d always been good with horses. “The Alinean stable servant. Yes. She’s dead.”
“So you did run together.” Lorres turned a corner, unlocked a door, and took them through it. The walls turned rougher, darker. Amara didn’t recognize this area. It had to be one of the newer parts. Had the servant wing changed, too? Did the palace’s main hall still have salt-crystal chandeliers, the finely drawn map of the Alinean Islands on the floor, the seas engraved on the walls? She hadn’t thought she’d ever find out.
“Ruudde will have someone punish you. I’ll tell him the stable servant took you when you were young, that you’re not responsible. It may help.” They exited the servant passage into a larger hallway, where the walls looked polished but stayed dark. Lorres stopped in front of a cell that was nothing but three walls and a pot in its center and steel bars too narrow to wedge through. She touched the bars. Cold. She didn’t recognize this sort of cell. Another export from Nolan’s world? “Not cheerful, I know. Ruudde had them built.” Lorres fished a key from his sidesling, opened the door in the bars, and waited for Amara to step in.
“You need to let me go,” she said.
He squeezed her shoulder, then pulled his hand back to talk. “I’m sorry. I am. Please don’t make me force you inside.”
“Do you know how I stayed hidden for so long? I was with a mage.” She didn’t let him reply. “You worked here before the coup. Do you remember the royal children, the princesses and prince?”
She shouldn’t talk about this to someone working directly under a minister, but she saw no other options. While she was trapped here, Cilla was helpless.
Lorres’s movements were deliberate. “Of course I remember the children. Amara, I need you to step inside.”
“All these years, I’ve been guarding Princess Cilla.” Amara stepped toward Lorres, away from the dank cell.
“Don’t use that—”
“Cilla is alive, but she’s in danger. She’s cursed. She could die without me. You have to let me find her.”
“We’ll talk about this later,” Lorres said with soothing gestures. He must figure she’d been taken from the palace young enough for someone to fill her head with all sorts of lies.
Amara slammed her bare elbow into the wall. “Look,” she said as pain flared into the bone. Blood welled up while her skin repaired itself at the edges of the scrape. “This is how I can protect her. I’m a mage.” The lie hurt, but the truth was too complicated, and she needed Lorres to listen.
He held her elbow to the light. He cursed. “Mages never select their own as servants.”
“They made a mistake.” Why was he lingering on this point instead of on Cilla? “Let me leave to find the princess. I have to.”
“Amara … The younger princess died in the coup. The ministers killed her. They choked her in her bed.”
“The ministers lied. Too many people would support Cilla if they knew she survived.”
“I saw the princess’s body. I burned it, after.” Lorres watched her with dark, earnest eyes.
“No,” Amara said. “You’re wrong. Maybe they replaced her with another child …”
“I knew that girl from birth. She had the royal mark on her chest and a mole on her chin. I don’t know what the stable servant or that mage you were with told you—I don’t know who you think you know—but the younger princess is dead.”
Amara’s mind stuttered and reeled and ground to a halt.
“Well,” a familiar voice said from behind Amara. Ruudde. “This is unfortunate.”
Three people stood at the end of the cell wing. Ruudde was in the back, looking older than Amara remembered and draped with more gemstones than ever. A marshal led the group, a short Jélisse man who kept one hand on Cilla’s neck and pushed her forward.
Cilla stared at Amara. Her eyes shone wetly. She’d seen their signs.
Cilla wasn’t the princess.