No. As the day turned to evening, Katsa knew she was fooling herself. They would search every ship, suspicious or not. They would search every building in the port city. They would comb the coastline east of Monport, and west to the mountains, and search every ship that chanced to approach the Monsean shore. They would tear the Lienid ships apart. And within a day or two, Katsa and Bitterblue would be sharing the base of the Monsean peaks with hordes of Leck’s soldiers. For there were only two paths out of Monsea: the sea, and the mountain pass on the Sunderan-Estillan border. If the fugitives weren’t found on the Port Road or in the forest, if the fugitives had not appeared on the mountain pass, in Monport, or aboard a ship, then Leck would know they were in the mountains, trapped by forest and sea, with the peaks that formed the border of Monsea and Sunder at their back.

When night fell, Katsa built a small fire against a wall of rock. “Are you tired?” she asked Bitterblue.

“Yes, but not terribly,” the child said. “I’m learning to sleep on the horse.”

“You’ll have to sleep on the horse again tonight,” Katsa said, “for we must keep moving. Tell me, Princess. What do you know of this mountain range?”

“The range that divides us from Sunder? Very little. I don’t think anyone knows much about these mountains. Not many people have gone into them, except up north, of course, at the pass.”

“Hmm.” Katsa dug through her bags and unearthed the roll of maps. She flattened them in her lap and flipped through them. Clearly, Raffin had taken Po at his word when Po said he wasn’t sure where they were going. She thumbed past maps of Nander and Wester, maps of Drowden City and Birn City. A map of Sunder, and another of Murgon City. Numerous maps of various parts of Monsea. She pulled a curling page out of the pile, laid it on the ground beside the fire, and dropped stones onto its edges to hold it flat. Then she sat back on her heels and studied the princess, who stood guard over the roasting quail.

There were people in all seven kingdoms with gray eyes and dark hair; Bitterblue’s coloring was not unusual. But even in the dim glow of the fire, she stood out. Her straight nose, and the quiet line of her mouth. Or was it the thickness of her hair, or the way the hair swept itself back from her forehead? Katsa couldn’t quite decide what it was, but she knew that even without hoops in her ears or rings on her fingers, the child had something of the Lienid in her appearance. Something that went beyond her dark hair and light eyes.

In a kingdom searching desperately for the ten-year-old child of a Lienid mother, Bitterblue would be very difficult to disguise. Even once they did the obvious: Cut her hair, change her clothes, and turn her into a boy.