“Save the teary reunion for later,” Una cut in. “We only have an hour until the next shift arrives and finds the post deserted.”

At the sound of Una’s voice, Hal tensed.

She crossed the room and made quick work of the chains binding him, easing them onto the floor in rattling coils. Wren swore the room temperature dropped several degrees as Hal glared at the side of Una’s face.

“Do you have something to say to me, Cavendish?”

Una had agreed to rescue him, but Wren supposed she couldn’t expect her hostility to fade immediately. And although Hal was trying to improve his relationship with the Danubian people, Una did order his arrest.

Wren grabbed their shoulders. “Save it. Both of you. If this plan is going to work, I need to make him look like he hasn’t been dragged a mile from the back of a carriage.”

Una sneered but turned away. She paced the room, her hair billowing out behind her like a war banner. Heaving a sigh of relief, Wren crouched by Hal’s side and began to tend to the worst of the bruises on his face.

“How did you…?”

“Una helped.” Exhaustion and overuse made slow, painful work of it, but Wren watched his face smooth out under her magic’s silver glow. “I know she’s thorny, but I promise you can trust her.”

Hal looked entirely unconvinced but said nothing.

Once she finished, she rested her hands on his cheeks and turned his head from side to side, inspecting him for any further visible damage. “How does that feel?”

“Better.” He frowned. “But they’ll still recognize me.”

“Only if they look too close.” Wren opened her bag and dropped a neatly folded uniform in his lap. “But with Una and me, they won’t. We’re going to walk out the front door.”

Hal lifted the black greatcoat as though it would bite.

“What?” Una said peevishly. “Too proud to wear Danubian colors?”

He remained implacably blank, and then with frosty derision said, “No. Only to share colors with you.”

Una barked out a bitter laugh. “So he does speak.”

Wren wanted to shake him, to beg him to let Una see even a glimpse of what he’d shown her, any scrap of kindness, any scrap of remorse. He wasn’t exactly making her case easy, even if it had been Una’s idea to free him in the first place.

“Can you try to be nice?” she muttered.

“For you,” Hal said tersely, “fine.”

He began to remove his tattered shirt. Wren averted her eyes, trying to ignore the pop of buttons and the shush of discarded fabric.

Finally, he said, “I’m ready.”