“Len.” He lifted his eyes to the ceiling.

“Please, Quinn. Today is my name day. By the end of the week, I’ll be tied to a man we all know won’t be of my choosing. This mask…” She touched the soft fabric on her face. “It’ll be gone but the cage will remain. You always speak to me of the freedom you experience when you leave the palace for other kingdoms. Let me feel that. Just once more. Please.”

“You can’t be gone long,” he finally said.

A grin spread across her face. “So, you’ll help me?”

“You have to promise you’ll come back as quickly as you can. I can buy you some time, but not much. I’ll tell father you fell ill and needed to collect yourself. He won’t question it.”

The truth stood between them. Their father wouldn’t care if she fell ill as long as she eventually returned.

Quinn went on. “I’m going to station a guard I trust outside the privy so father believes it. You can go taste your freedom for a few minutes and then come right back. I’m sending one of my men down there to keep an eye on you.”

“That’s not—”

“Negotiable.”

“Fine.”

“I would rather accompany you. It would make me feel better.”

Helena touched his arm. “But I’m not going as the princess so I can’t really have the prince with me, can I?” She gestured to his bag. “I know you don’t fight shirtless like Dell does. Let’s see what I have to work with.”

He reached in and pulled out long wool pants and a shirt she was going to drown in.

“More complicated than borrowing from Kass,” she grumbled.

Quinn laughed and gestured to the privy door nearby.

Helena left her brother in the hall and stepped into the small washroom. As soon as the door slammed shut behind her, she pulled at the laces on the front of her dress, thankful her mother hadn’t forced a corset on her. She slipped the knife, her constant companion, from her bodice and wiggled out of the gown. As she slipped Quinn’s clothes on, she sighed at the comfort.

The pants tried falling to her knees, so she knotted them at the waist and rolled them until her feet were visible. The shirt hung off her small frame as if it was meant for an ape. She guessed it was, thinking of Quinn’s bulk. She tucked it into her pants, knowing she probably looked like one of the homeless boys begging at the docks.

Her fingers ran under the bottom of the mask and she hesitated before untying it.

Pins dropped to the ground as she pulled them from her hair. She used the last few to pull her long curls back into the low tail worn by many sailors.