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“She’ll be so afraid— Does she even know you? And she will be looking over her shoulders, startled at every sound—”

“She will be less afraid to leave than to stay,” Leah said gently.

“Yes,” Cheelin said, nodding firmly and straightening his shoulders. Leah imagined he was taking on burdens, gathering his strength. “And she will know she is coming to me. And then all will be well.”

“Yes,” Leah echoed. “I think all will be well, indeed.”

•   •   •

N
ext she went to the Little Islands, to the Dhonshon shop run by the four women she had befriended. The youngest, Teyta, was yawning and sulking as she folded fabrics and straightened the
merchandise. “Finally!” she exclaimed when Leah walked in. “Someone interesting to talk to! I am so
bored
!”

Leah smiled. “How would you like to do something exciting? And earn a little money besides?”

“Really? I would
love
it!”

“It might be dangerous,” Leah warned.

“I don’t care! I would do
anything
to get out of here for even half an hour.”

“Have you ever been to the palace?”

“Maybe a dozen times. Sometimes the cook orders special ingredients from our shop and we deliver them when they come in. Is that it? You want me to take something to the palace?”

“Well,” said Leah, “not exactly.”

Even when Leah outlined the plan, Teyta didn’t lose her enthusiasm. Leah never mentioned Alette’s name, but she would bet Teyta had guessed who else was involved in this caper, which probably added to her excitement.

“I know I should ask permission from your mother,” Leah said after they had gone over the details a few times. “But I’m afraid she’ll say no.”

“Pooh,” Teyta said, tossing her head. “I’m a grown woman. She can’t tell me what to do.”

“Sometimes mothers can tell their daughters what to do until they’re both very old women.”

Teyta laughed. “Then I shall ask my grandmother to order my mother to let me go! My grandmother has very strong feelings about—” Teyta hesitated, no more interested in using names than Leah was. “About Dhonsho,” she ended lamely.

“I’ll be back tomorrow to make sure you haven’t changed your mind.”

“I won’t.”

Since she was so close, Leah swung by the Welchin café for some fruited water and a little gossip. The shop owner looked inexpressibly relieved to see her.

“Leah! I have been hoping for three days that you would come by,” she said, pouring a glass without even being asked.

Leah felt her eyebrows arch. This was new. The shop owner had always been the most casual and comfortable of Leah’s contacts, full of
news but never full of urgency. “Didn’t I leave you an address where you could get in touch with me?”

“Yes, but that was more than a year ago and of course I lost it! But I told him you come by at least once a nineday, so you would be here eventually.”

“Told him? Told who? Did someone leave me a message?”

“No—he’s waiting for you himself. I have a room upstairs that I rent sometimes, though it’s been a couple quintiles since I had a paying tenant.”

“So somebody’s looking for me and he’s
here
?” Leah felt sparks of uneasiness flicker down her spine. “Who is he?”

“I’m not sure, but he’s from Welce. And I think he has a lot of money—at any rate, he’s been very openhanded.”

“But he didn’t tell you his name.”

“He told me
a
name, but I don’t think it’s his.”

“How did he know to find me here?”

“He said that a ship captain told him about this place.”

“Huh.” That made Leah a little less suspicious. She had, in fact, given this address to Captain Ada Simms, so her secretive visitor might simply be a shady character here to offer a smuggling deal. Which made her wonder . . . “Your visitor just arrived from Welce? He made it through the blockade?”

“Apparently so. He hasn’t said much about the trip except that it was a real adventure.”

Leah gulped down the last of her water. “Well, then. I guess I’d better go see what he wants.”

Just then the front door opened and a family of five came in, chattering in Welchin. “Can you just take yourself upstairs? He’s in the last room at the end of the hallway. I’ll see you later!”

Leah nodded and made her way to the back of the shop and into the kitchen—which smelled like sugar and bread and home—and from there to the narrow stairwell. She still felt premonition skittering along her backbone, so she held the banister with one hand and her favorite dagger with her other. This man might have been sent by Captain Simms, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a scoundrel.

Only four doors opened up off the short hallway, which was dimly
lit by small windows at either end of the corridor. Leah was tempted to stand outside the last door and shout at the occupant to come out—as she had with Cheelin Barlio—but she figured the shop owner wouldn’t appreciate the ruckus. So she knocked instead and listened to the
thump
and rustle on the other side of the door. Footsteps approached.

She expected a suspicious interrogation from the mysterious boarder, but instead he flung the door open and spread his arms in a warm greeting. He was already smiling. “Leah!” he roared. “It
is
you! Of all the places for you to go to ground!”

She just stared at him. He was a stocky man in his middle sixties, with a ruddy complexion, a ready laugh, and curly red hair about half surrendered to gray. Oh, but she knew so much more about him than the facts of his appearance. As long as he was in the room, someone was bound to be talking—usually him—and almost everyone was likely to be entertained. He was smart, warmhearted, scheming, unreliable, lovable, infuriating, and kind. He was the sweela prime, and there was no one she would have been more surprised to see in Malinqua.

“Nelson Ardelay,” she said blankly. “What are you doing here?”

He took her arm and pulled her through the door. “Come in, come in. Are you hungry? I was just about to eat.”

“I think I’m too stunned to choke down a morsel.”

He grinned and shepherded her over to a small table, where he had, indeed, laid out fruit compote, fresh-baked bread, and other appetizing items. “Well, then you can just sit and watch me chew,” he said as they sat down.

“I’m serious. What are you
doing
here?”

Nelson tore into a piece of bread. He was the kind of man who could talk with his mouth full and yet somehow not be annoying; he had so much to say that he couldn’t wait to get the words out. “We have been hearing some very disturbing rumors out of Malinqua. Darien wanted to send a navy straightaway to bring Corene home—but there was some question about how easily a navy might force its way in. So he thought to send an ambassador first, someone who could analyze the situation and maybe talk some sense into the empress.”

“So he picked you,” Leah said dryly.

Nelson grinned. “Well, I
can
talk,” he said modestly.

“You certainly can. But if you’re here to negotiate, why are you hiding like a fugitive?”

“I thought I’d try to see how the land lies before making a grand entrance at the palace. See how much danger Corene is in.”

“Some, I think,” Leah admitted. “But I don’t think she’s greatly afraid.”

“No. Well, she’s not a fearful girl in general.”

“So you really have a navy at your back?”

He gestured vaguely toward the ocean. “Fifty ships. Out to sea far enough to not seem threatening—though I assume Filomara has caught wind of them by now.”

“I haven’t seen any warships in the harbor. How’d you get through the blockade?”

He grinned. “I came in with a merchant trader who knew a less—shall we say—obvious route. She’s the one who told me how to find you, in fact.”

“So I figured. Though how Captain Simms got in touch with you to begin with—”

“Oh, it’s all very convoluted,” Nelson agreed. “But apparently you talked to her some ninedays ago, and claimed you knew Kayle Dochenza. And she asked Kayle, and Kayle shared the news with me, and then he told Darien and—” He shrugged. “Once Darien knows something, all the pieces fall in place.”

She sighed. “And Darien knows everything.”

Nelson regarded her steadily. “He knew where
you
were, at any rate, which is something I would have liked to know for a long time.”

“Really?” she said tiredly. “You even noticed I was gone?”

“Of course I noticed! And inquired discreetly, though the trail went cold very quickly once it meandered through Darien Serlast’s office.” For a moment Nelson’s cheerful face looked grim. “There are many things I admire about our regent, but I do not believe he always knows best in every single situation. I am still angry with him for not telling me where you were—or rather, where he had sent you.”

“I asked him not to tell anyone. I didn’t want to be followed. And argued with. And reminded.”

“Well, you’ve been gone five years now. I would think some of those memories would be a little less painful by now.”

Leah gave a ghost of a laugh. “And you would mostly be wrong.”

Showing admirable and uncharacteristic self-restraint, Nelson didn’t reply. He simply took another bite of bread and watched her, waiting for her to ask the question she had wanted to ask somebody, anybody, for the past five years.

“So how is she? How’s my daughter?” she finally said.

Nelson would know, of course. He was the girl’s grandfather.

EIGHTEEN

W
hen the day came for them to set out on their expedition, Alette was the calmest one of all. Liramelli was trying to maintain her usual stoic demeanor, but she kept dropping things and bumping into walls, betraying her deep nervousness. Melissande fluttered even more than usual, making minute adjustments to her own toilette then hovering around the rest of them to straighten a shawl or smooth down a wayward curl. Corene snapped at everyone:
Do you have to be so restless? Don’t break anything else!
Not even Melissande reproached her for her tone.

But Alette merely sat quietly in the middle of Melissande’s room and waited for the minutes to tick by. She was dressed in traditional Dhonshon clothing—a vivid tunic in what Corene considered the sweela colors of red and yellow and orange, overlaid with the yellow shawl Alette wore every day. But she had complemented this ensemble with sturdy, rather ugly shoes that looked suitable for walking across a continent.

“What did you tell Jiramondi when he asked if he could come with us?” Liramelli asked. She’d posed the same question at least twice already.

“I said today is a Welchin holiday on which only women were
allowed into the temples,” Corene replied. “Which is why Steff couldn’t come, either. And then he asked if Foley was coming and I said yes, but we wouldn’t let him inside the temple. Which we won’t,” she added.

“But Jiramondi is very smart, you know,” Melissande said, worried. “He might be in the library even now! Looking up Welchin customs! He will realize you were lying to him.”

“Maybe, but by then it will be too late.” Corene glanced once more at the clock, which finally, miraculously, showed the correct time. She had approached Lorian last night to ask him to arrange for transportation.
The other women and I would like to go to the Little Islands in the morning. Could you have a carriage ready?
She didn’t say
a carriage and a dozen guards
because Lorian would take care of the guards all on his own.

“Finally. Let’s go.”

They headed out the door, the rest of them wrapping themselves in their own colorful shawls as they went. It was partly symbolic—wearing Dhonshon clothing as they plotted a Dhonshon escape—and partly practical. Foley was the one who had alerted Corene to this detail.

“When you’re following someone, you can’t always see his face,” he had explained. “So you look for physical markers that you can spot at a distance. Height. Coloring. An unusual piece of clothing. If you wear certain colors, you make life a lot easier for the guards who are trying to keep you in view.”

Good to know. They would offer Filomara’s official soldiers and skulking assassins a veritable
rainbow
of targets. They wanted the guards’ job to be very easy indeed.

No one impeded them as they wended through the corridors and out the front door of the palace, chatting as casually as they could. Corene could tell that her own laugh was high and strained, while Liramelli couldn’t bring herself to laugh at all. But soon enough the four of them were seated in the open carriage and it was headed out at a brisk pace. Foley was on horseback beside them, and a dozen guards ranged before and behind. Corene figured they’d pick up any murder-minded escorts once they were a few blocks from the courtyard, but she wasn’t going to bother to look for them.

“What a very nice day we have for our outing,” Melissande observed
nervously. “Sunny and not at all cold! We could walk for hours if we had to.”

Corene glared at her. “Fortunately, we won’t have to.”

“No! Of course not! Such a lovely carriage the empress has provided.”

“I believe the weather is supposed to get much chillier tomorrow,” Liramelli said in her serious way. “Even stormy. Clouds rolling in tonight.”

“Clouds! Yes. One will hardly be able to see the moon tonight if there are clouds,” Melissande rattled on. When Corene gave her another minatory look, Melissande added, “Oh, but I
prefer
moonlight, of course. It makes everything so pretty.”

“Why don’t we just enjoy the sunlight and not talk so much?” Corene suggested.

Liramelli sat a little straighter. “Perhaps I should act like Garameno for this trip, and point out interesting sights,” she said. “You see that tall building—the gray one with the tile roof? That’s the archives for the history of the city. One of Garameno’s favorite places.”

“One of the reasons Garameno is so very dull,” Melissande murmured.

Liramelli’s travelogue took them through the rest of the journey, which seemed to last for hours but was really less than one. Despite her impatience, Corene felt a surge of panic when the carriage crossed into the Little Islands and pulled up in front of the Welchin temple. It was time! Was she ready?