“Thank you, milady.” The guard bows and hands me the parchment. I take it, and he sees himself out. When I’m sure he’s gone, I flip the parchment over—it’s a letter with no wax seal. Not from another noble, then. Curiosity is a welcome distraction, and so I open the letter carefully.

The handwriting is instantly recognizable—I see it every day. Or the shadows of it, at least. Yorl’s. It’s thin and small, every letter perfect.

Varia, it reads. There’s been a breach near the dog’s kennel. Your presence is required.

The dog—he means Evlorasin, obviously. But what kind of breach? I thought Yorl had the valkerax contained? There’s another letter within that letter—the watertell must’ve sent both of them, one after the other in quick succession.

The next one reads simply: The dog has escaped. Bring help.

My eyes bug out. Escaped? Evlorasin has escaped?

My insides drop with a sickening velocity. Is it digging below the city even now? It could collapse the city in on itself. People could die. And every chance of getting my heart back resides with Evlorasin. If it escapes back to the Dark Below…my deal with Varia won’t be called off, but who knows how long it’ll be before she finds another valkerax for me to teach?

At the same time, part of me thinks, quietly, that it would be better if Evlorasin did escape. If Varia never finds the Bone Tree and never dies for it.

But I know she’ll never stop. Letting Evlorasin escape now would only slow her down.

I bolt up from the couch. Bring help, the letter said. Apparently Yorl thinks one witch won’t be enough. Which means one Heartless won’t be enough, either. Varia is entrenched with her father and mother—pulling her away from the queen and king discreetly won’t be easy, especially considering I slapped the prince. And by the time I bring her the letter and she manages to get away from them, Evlorasin could already be gone for good.

I need someone who can help, and fast.

There’s only one other person in the city who knows valkerax better than Varia does, better than Yorl even, and certainly better than I do.

I lunge out of the door and look at the guards. “Where’s Malachite?”

“The prince’s guard said he would be patrolling outside the Moonskemp party, milady.”

I dash back to the last place I want to be, hiking my skirts up to run. Sure enough, I find Malachite walking outside the ballroom with his usual lazily striding alertness.

When he sees me running toward him, he narrows his bloodred eyes. “Not you. Not tonight.”

“Me,” I assert. “Definitely tonight. I need your help. And quickly.”