Something caught her eye. She lifted her arm from the water and squinted.
If she looked close enough, there was a strange whirl of a pattern on her forearm, well above the witch-mark on her wrist. It almost looked like…
Something impossible. She’d just wear long sleeves until it passed.
A faint, piercing sound made her jump. It was familiar—too familiar. A whistle, muted but clear.
She knew it. Didn’t she?
The whistle came again. It was a Crow signal, an order.
Up.That was what it meant.Up.
Fie woke with a start. The room around her was dark, the faint snores of Jasimir and Khoda both holding steady. Jasimir had claimed the couch, and Khoda a heap of cushions, both inundated with sleepingcats. Last time she’d counted, they now had seven in their purview, including Barf, but Barf had staunchly refused to share the bed with anyone or anything except Fie. The intricate window screen had been left ajar just enough to let the mousers come and go as they pleased.
It gave a slight rattle. Fie saw no sign of a cat.
Every nerve afire, she slid from the bed and crept to the window.
The screen rattled again. This time she was close enough to see the culprit: a thrown pebble.
She barely held in a noise of disgust and peered outside. Sure enough, Tavin was standing below, only a few paces away, lit in moonlight that had only diminished slightly since the solstice. His face broke into a grin when he saw her.
Fie made a bewildered gesture. He pointed to the ground, then held out his arms, mouthing,I’ll catch you!
She debated a moment, then lied to herself that she might gather valuable information, coaxed the screen open, and threw a leg over the jamb. Barf yawned from the foot of the bed but curled into a tighter ball.
It isn’t even that far of a drop, Fie thought with the kind of disdain she invoked for things she secretly enjoyed. The window was just high enough to discourage intruders, taller than Tavin by maybe half his height.
He reached up to help Fie scoot off the frame, fingers pressing into her hips in a way that was distracting and not helpful at all, and there was a wretched moment when he looked up and she looked down, bracing herself on his shoulders, only to find their faces much too close again, and all she could think of was how he didn’t smell the same in the palace as on the road, but close enough that it was still him—
Tavin set her on the ground, then took her hand in his, jabbing a free thumb toward the royal quarters. She goggled at him. If he’dwoken her up just to tumble somewhere private, she might murder him ahead of schedule.
Tavin read the look on her face and frantically shook his head. “I want to show you something,” he whispered, then cringed. “That… didn’t come out right. There’s something I want you to see?”
“Is it in your trousers?” she asked doubtfully. “Because I—” Fie caught herself. She’d almost said she’d seen it before, which Niemi certainly had not. “I… can guess,” she mumbled instead.
His teeth flashed in a sheepish laugh. “No, nothing like that. It’s not even in the royal quarters, just the private gardens.”
Fie waited for Niemi’s spark to feed her an answer. There was only silence. Belatedly, she remembered throwing the tooth across the room. She swallowed.
She was on her own with Tavin now.
“Oh,” Fie said. “That’s, er, fine.”
He didn’t tarry in the gardens, instead cutting as straight a line to the royal quarters as possible. There was a magic to it: no Hawks on guard troubled them, only bowing their heads as he passed. They even opened the doors to the royal quarters for him, easy as could be.
Tavin led her right through those too, avoiding the stairs entirely. He didn’t even stop to pick up a lamp, letting a golden flame roll off his hand instead to light the way. In less than a minute they were back outside, on a stone path bordered in dense, dark hedges.
“You don’t have to, but it’s better if you close your eyes,” Tavin said.
Fie weighed it a heartbeat, but decided if this was any sort of trick, she was rutted anyway. She shut her eyes and let him steer her down the walkway, one hand between her shoulder blades. The air grew cooler, damper on her skin, a soft rush building in her ears. The scent of some strange flower drifted through the air, honey-sweet and light as a soap bubble.
They came to a stop. “You can look now,” Tavin said, close enough to her ear to send goose bumps down her arms.
Fie opened her eyes.
They stood at the edge of a broad, dark pond, facing the stone cliffs that made up the westernmost end of the palace. A waterfall traced a white veil down the stone, splashing into the far end of the pond. To either side, dozens, maybe hundreds, of thin streams fell like threads, some filling the smaller pools bracketing the main one.
