“This way,” Mistress Weft said quietly, lighting a lamp and sending the apartment into a blaze of color. Everywhere Claire looked, there was fabric: on the wall, beneath her feet, above her head, where the ceiling was draped in gauzy strips of pink, drawing out from the center like a tent’s pavilion. There were even barrels outlining the room’s perimeters, each filled to the top with Royalist-blue yarn. Claire’s stomach turned. There was enough yarn in them for a hundred new cloaks. A hundred new people who believed Queen Estelle’s lies.

“Have a seat,” Mistress Weft said warmly, pointing to a rickety kitchen table. “Lyric—can you go get some of your sister’s clothes for Elaina to change into? Then come help me in the kitchen. You, though, poor little knot,” Mistress Weft said as she caught Claire covering a yawn, “go lie down and get some rest. We’ll call you when breakfast is ready.”

Soon enough, Claire had dropped her Hollow Pack in the corner of the bedroom, tugged off the strangely witchy Spyden’s dress, and pulled on a new outfit, which, though a bit big, was the most comfortable thing she’d worn in weeks. The wide-legged trousers, embroidered with silver galaxies, swished around her legs like a skirt, and the scarlet sweater was as warm as her puffiest winter coat but felt as thin as moth’s wings. Ignoring the blanket on Lyric’s sister’s bed (it would be a while before Claire wanted to wrap herself up in anything), Claire flopped over the covers of the large canopy bed, and quickly fell asleep.

A few hours later, Lyric came in to wake her and help her detangle her curls until Mistress Weft called for them. Breakfast—or brunch, rather, as Mistress Weft had let her sleep a couple of hours more—was ready.

Between bites of thick oatmeal and nibbles of honey-drizzled toast, Lyric and her mother tried to piece together a story from Claire’s vague answers. It wasn’t hard to keep her replies short. Any time Claire paused, Lyric would barrel in, coming up with fifty different possibilities. So long as Claire remained quiet, Lyric would create Claire’s cover story for her without even realizing it.

The only time Claire didn’t manage to keep her expression of vague confusion was when Lyric went off on a tangent, describing in excruciating detail what everyone had worn the day Historian Fray arrived with the good news.

“Tina wore her gown that looks like an upside-down rose, but it just could not compare to the color of the prince’s doublet!”

Claire took a bite of toast. “What prince?”