Redna is tall and tanned, her brown hair always braided back, and her plain features usually smiling. Now, though, she studies me silently, then shakes her head. “Can’t say, Highness.”

“I just—I wanted to make sure she was safe.”

Redna’s brows rise, and then she smiles. “She is, Highness. We all put in to give her some money, and she left before the sun set yesterday. Can’t say where she went, though I’m sure someone knows. No good letting that information out, if you know what I mean.”

I do. I wouldn’t want my brother to be able to track her down either. “I’m glad, then,” I say.

Redna reaches out and gently plucks a leaf from my hair. “You’d best go on, Highness.”

I blink at her, taken aback by the care in her actions coupled with the dismissal in her words.

She gestures with the leaf toward the back of the stables. “That way to the kitchens. If your brother comes in behind you, it’s best not to be here.”

“The kitchens?” I repeat.

“You’ll be hungry,” Redna says, letting the leaf fall and turning once more to the stall. “And I don’t know that I’ve heard of your brother stopping into the kitchens of his own accord.”

She’s right. That is the realm of servants, and my brother would never deign to set foot there. But I cannot imagine it will be a place for me, either.

“Go on,” Redna says, flapping her hand at me.

I mumble my thanks and take her advice, following the servants’ path from the back of the stables around the hall to the kitchen. It’s a noisy, warm place, filled with conversation that dies at the sight of me.

“Highness?” a woman asks, tall and well-built, her work dress patched but sturdy, her front dusted with flour. “Can I help you?”

I glance around. The remaining servants all watch me in return. Perhaps she is the head cook. I have never met her before.

“I wondered if I—well, I’m a little hungry.”

“I can have some food sent up to your room for you,” the cook says, her tone uncertain.

“I—yes, but . . .” But my brother will easily find me there. “I wondered if I could just stay here for a few minutes? By the fire, perhaps?”

The cook looks at me with dawning comprehension, but there is no pity in that look. Instead, her eyes sharpen and she says, her voice steely, “You’ll always be welcome to warm yourself here, princess. Dara, set a stool there for Her Highness and get her some fresh bread rolls and a pat of butter.”

“Thank you,” I say, but the cook just waves a hand at me, not unlike Redna, and turns back to her work.