Aunt Tilly had paused to dip her quill in ink. Her face bore the beloved frown that meant she was considering how to stretch the turnips in the bin so no one in the house would go hungry. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun and tucked under a scarf. Her merry, round face looked the same but for the dark circles under her eyes that spoke of hours of fretting. Yet she had always been able to dredge up a smile to hearten her children and ameliorate their disappointments, for just as Uncle Jonatan had remained engrossed in work, she had cared most about the well-being of those she loved.

Drake came up beside me in Vai’s stolen clothes. How I hated him! He put a hand on my back in a proprietorial manner that made me tense, and him smile.

“Why would you bring a spy to spy on spies?” he demanded of the general. “I know she plans to betray us, but what you mean to gain by abetting her I cannot fathom.”

Every head came up at the sound of his voice, just as deer startle when they catch the scent of a slavering wolf. His hand crept along the curve of my waist like a crawling poison. There I stood, caught between the man who had used my ignorance and fear to take advantage of me in a most intimate way, and the aunt and uncle who had raised me from childhood so they could sacrifice me to save their daughter.

Uncle Jonatan leaped to his feet. “Cat! Fiery Shemesh! Is Bee with you? Where is she?”

“Cat!” Aunt Tilly rose, grabbing onto the back of her chair for support as she swayed.

I was the one whose legs gave out. Camjiata neatly peeled me away from Drake’s unwanted embrace and hauled me to a narrow bed placed along one wall. He set me down like a sack. I sat there numb, handless and footless, floating as if I no longer had body or will.

The other clerks hurriedly vacated the room. The click of the door closing behind them made me jump, as if all my skin were flayed and my heart laid out on the table to be carved into pieces by the knives of betrayal.

“I thought you loved me,” I whispered. “All those years, I really thought you loved me.”

Aunt Tilly’s shame twisted her face, and I did not want to see it there.

Uncle Jonatan pressed a hand to my shoulder. “Cat, of course we loved you, it’s just…”

“Don’t touch me!” I shrieked, leaping up. Blindly tearing away from him, I slammed into the wall. Pain burst down my shoulder, and erupted in my heart. I sobbed until I thought my lungs would be ripped from my chest.